The Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT) has received an assurance from the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) that a shelved measure to rein in politicians who launder ill-got gains will be restored, says the agency's chief.
The ACT has petitioned the anti-money laundering and narcotics committee attached to the House of Representative secretariat office to begin the process of reinstating the PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) measure, ACT chairman Mana Nimitmongkol said.
The committee brought the petition to Amlo's attention, which explained that the measure was implemented in 2013 before being cancelled in 2020. The reason for the cancellation was not given.
Mr Mana said Amlo has assured the ACT it stands ready to relaunch the PEP in the middle of this year after a study has been conducted in support of the measure being reinstated.
The measure calls for the identification of "persons accorded political status," including political post-holders and high-level officials of the courts, independent organisations, the military, and the police. It also applies to expats living in the kingdom.
It requires banks and businesses providing services such as investment consultancy, as well as gold shops, to alert Amlo to their PEP customers who might be engaging in money-laundering transactions or asset-laundering acts. The transactions can then be presented as a digital footprint in an investigation into a PEP person's money trail and used as evidence in court.
"This can pinpoint in glaring detail how much money goes in and out of the bank accounts of a minister, department director-general, or senior military officials or police on a daily basis," Mr Mana said. "It can pretty much tell whether the money is being spent on investment or buying expensive assets, and where all this takes place."
He said any money obtained from extortion, bribery, blackmail, the narcotics trade or human trafficking usually changes hands in cash.
Eventually, the cash will need to be deposited in a bank account before being distributed to parties further down the line or exchanged into crypto currency or used to buy gold.
Mr Mana said that even during the measure's implementation from 2013-2019, few offenders were caught. He attributed this to officers being reluctant to enforce it to help the powers-that-be avoid investigation.
The ACT chairman said the PEP measure should be enforced alongside the National Anti-Corruption Commission's scrutiny of senior politicians and officials' asset declarations and the Revenue Department's income tax audit to combat graft.
In the Global Financial and Economic Crime Outlook 2025, released on April 10 by the Secretariat, a global independent expert services and litigation consulting firm, Thailand ranked among 78 countries in the Reactive Reformers group, with the Secretariat Economic Crime Index (SECI) giving them scores ranging between 2.19 and 2.83. Thailand scored 2.53.
Countries in this group tend to exhibit weak anti-crime frameworks, significant regulatory gaps, and have a higher prevalence of high-risk activities, facing challenges in combating financial crimes due to insufficient regulatory measures.