The Royal Thai Police’s Economic Crimes Department (ECD), with support from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), has raided four locations in Bangkok, Surin Province and Surat Thani. Four Thai nationals have been taken into custody and are expected to be formally charged with copyright offenses in the coming days.

Siambit.me was the largest torrent tracker site in Thailand with average monthly visits of 5.5 million, and which provided access to a huge range of Hollywood, international and Thai content.

The site had been in operation since 2005 and is known to regularly change its domain to avoid detection. According to statements by the Royal Thai Police, Siambit.me had over 100,000 VIP members and the operators were making an estimated 1.5 million baht (USD $41,000) on a monthly basis.

“We commend the ECD for their continued collaboration with ACE’s global team and for taking enforcement action against this large torrent site,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “Illicit torrent sites put consumers around the world at risk of unwittingly downloading malware such as spyware, remote access trojans and even ransomware. The ECD’s action helps protect the livelihood of Thai and international creators and distributors, and it helps shield consumers from such malware.”

Suebsiri Taweepon, President of the Intellectual Property Association of Thailand (IPAT), said, “We would like to commend the professionalism of the ECD and ACE in taking down this large torrent tracker site. Piracy sites such as Siambit undermine local and international investment in our country’s content sector, reduce tax contributions to the government, and stifle creativity.”

This article was first published on ACE