Thailand Moves To Curb ‘Grey Money’ With Tougher Crypto And Gold Regulations
Thailand’s authorities has ordered a broad crackdown on so-called gray cash, pushing regulators to tighten oversight of gold buying and selling and digital belongings and hyperlink monetary information throughout businesses to become profitable laundering more durable to cover.
Officials use the time period gray cash for funds that transfer by means of legal-looking channels however typically hint again to legal syndicates, tax evasion, or different illicit exercise, particularly when merchants exploit gaps between outdated guidelines for bodily belongings and newer platforms for digital transactions, a local outlet reported.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul laid out the push after chairing a high-level session on the Finance Ministry on Friday, with Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas and different businesses tasked to shut loopholes in gold trades with out bodily supply and in digital asset flows.
AML Rules Tighten For Physical Gold Purchases
A central a part of the plan is a Data Bureau, a shared system that hyperlinks datasets from related businesses by way of Open API to offer authorities a single view of suspicious exercise throughout gold, digital belongings, e-wallets, international change and money, with out creating a brand new standalone company.
On the gold aspect, anti-money laundering authorities have been advised to chop the obligatory reporting threshold for gold bar purchases from the present 2M baht stage to a considerably decrease determine, aiming to scale back “smurfing,” the place giant sums get cut up into smaller transactions to dodge detection.
Regulators additionally need to convey on-line gold buying and selling underneath tighter supervision. The Revenue Department is learning a brand new particular enterprise tax for platforms that facilitate gold trades with out bodily supply, and the federal government desires stricter accounting, particular accounts for suppliers, and reporting that permits state audits.
Thailand Aims To Seal Loopholes Between Gold, Cash And Crypto
That gold focus additionally ties into the forex story. Officials have linked unusually giant gold-related flows to the baht’s energy, and Reuters has reported the finance ministry is exploring a tax and attainable buying and selling caps after the baht gained about 10.3% in 2025, elevating stress on exporters and tourism-linked companies.
For crypto, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been ordered to strictly implement the Travel Rule, requiring digital asset suppliers to determine each the sender and receiver in pockets to pockets transfers, tightening the online round flows that beforehand relied on anonymity.
Anutin framed the push as an replace to enforcement that covers outdated and new channels on the similar time.
“Today, we aren’t solely addressing trendy digital threats but in addition ‘analogue’ monetary crimes,” he stated, including, “We should work as a single, built-in power to guard the general public curiosity and the integrity of our monetary system.”
For exchanges, brokers and different service suppliers, the shift means heavier compliance expectations, extra identification checks, and tighter reporting on transfers that contact regulated platforms, as Thailand tries to make it more durable for illicit funds to leap between gold, money and crypto with out leaving a path.
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