PHUKET: Phuket's government-owned land was being occupied then misappropriated for the benefit of so-called ''influential people,'' a senior Internal Security Operations Command general warned yesterday.

Isoc Operations 4 Director Lieutenant General Akanant Ratanasopar was speaking to media at Provincial Hall in Phuket City after a briefing with Phuket officials on public property.

''Everybody knows who these influential people are,'' he said, explaining the real estate scam.

The influential people pay local Phuket poor to occupy the government land, sometimes above the 80 metre building limit, then after a period of years the poor occupiers make a claim to a chanote land title, he said.

It was up to local authorities to be pro-active and to prevent the acquisition of public land by stealth by the influential people, Lieutenant General Akanant said. Nothing would be achieved by allowing the scammers to succeed, he added.

Landslips of the kind that devastated Krabi earlier this year were also a danger on Phuket, he said. Local authorities needed to be constantly on the alert for all kinds of disasters, from coastal tsunamis to hill country landslips.

He said Phuket had many natural attributed that made it one of Thailand's richest provinces, but the natural attributes remained in need of constant protection, especially for the future of the international tourism industry.