RAYA has become popular among tourists for snorkelling and diving but the people who live on the island off Phuket say greedy investors are making a mockery of community property traditions there.

Although generations of Raya people have never had title deeds, a rash of big investors have somehow managed to obtain precious chanotes, a delegation of residents told reporters on Phuket yesterday.

The residents met with the Phuket Media Club and then took their claims of skulduggery to the Damrongtam office in Provincial Hall in Phuket City, which investigates many complaints in much the same way as Ombudsmen operate in other countries.

Raya island local leader Yattana Jandee told the Phuket reporters that the residents intend to pursue their case through the courts to prevent more shonky land titles being granted.

''The Land Department has always rejected applications for chanotes by residents who have lived on Raya for generations,'' he said. ''It's a mystery to us how these people with no connection to Raya suddenly find themselves owning large and perfectly-placed pieces of it.''

He said there had been seven cases where substantial plots on Racha had mysteriously been acquired by big investors.

Yet every time locals had attempted to assert their rights to land deeds, they had been told that Raya was a special area where no titles were being granted.

''We have five large resorts on our island,'' Khun Yattana said. ''We don't need any more.''

Raya is alternatively often called Racha.