More than 11 people have been arrested in the tsunami devastated resort town of Phuket, Thailand for looting, the Phuket police said today. Police Major General Suwit O-thong, the Phuket provincial police commissioner, is threatening with very harsh punishment for anyone caught looting other people's property during these times of suffering, and said that more police patrols had been created to stop any further thefts.

Most of the thief's and looters are in their late teens, both local Thais and foreigners, with many of them Burmese migrant workers and fishermen from neighboring countries. They are mostly operating in the Patong Beach, Kamala and Kata-Karon beach areas, Major General Suwit said further.

police and Thai officials in charge of these theft-cases have been ordered not to grant bail to any thief's or looters caught and to apply the harsh punishment of up to 10 years of jail term and 50,000-Baht fine (1 US = 39 Baht), Suwit added.

In another development, local police have been trying to identify about 100 dead bodies in Patong by conducting DNA tests. Reinforcements were also called in from the nearby provincial police command to help in the search for more bodies.

In the meanwhile, Thai police in Pathumthani on the outskirts of Bangkok, is issuing a warning about a group of Thai men that are pretending to represent Thai relief agencies and asking money donations and food parcels for the Tsunami victims from the general public of Thailand. The food and money they are collecting is not reaching any Tsunami victims, but is going straight into their own pockets. The Thai police is asking the population that if they see such suspicious groups of men asking for donations, to immediately inform the Thai police who will check them out at once.