Thai police have raided the offices of five without a permit Cryptocurrency Companies that arrest 11 employees as part of a broader action against illegal crypto-related activities in Thailand.
Officers of the Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) had received Warrants to search the site of five companies active in the provinces Nakhon Pathom, Samut Sakhon and Bangkok.
ECD commander Thatphum Jaruprat said that the 11 arrested persons include a mix of managers and fewer senior employees, whereby the police also took six computers and other evidence.
An investigation by the ECD had established that the people arrested had exploited illegal E-money companies with a combined annual turnover of around a billion baht, or $ 29.3 million.
The robberies were reportedly followed as intermediaries for local investors who want to buy investment products that are sold abroad, which means that customers have to transfer money in e-Wallets to complete cross-border purchases.
Thailand is strictly arranging for forex-based E-money companies, where its 2017 Payment System Act requires that all such companies register and secure licenses.
But according to the ECD, the failure of the companies to register created a money laundering risk, while it also damaged the economy by making a capital flight possible.
The police have accused the 11 suspects of providing electronic money services without a permit, and it is not the first time this year that the authorities have established illegal crypto activities.
Thailand’s Crypto -performance
January the Bureau Cyber Crime Investigation in Thailand saw a ban on polymarket proposing, with the argument that creates the “economic and social risks” prediction market -based prediction market.
Last month the Thai and the Chinese police frozen cryptocurrencies worth around $ 2.5 million after arresting two Chinese persons who were later accused of fraud and human trafficking.
And only today did Binance Th reported that Thailand saw one of the biggest increases worldwide in investment complaints and damage, whereby the stock market received more than 1,000 data requests from the police in the last three years.
Such actions can invite the suspicion that Thailand will perform on crypto, but Singapore-based intergovernmental blockchain adviser Anndy Lian claims that Thai authorities are mainly aimed at bad actors.
“You have the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) that collaborates with people like Binance to reduce pig ships that annoying romance investment hybrids that have torn millions,” he said Decrypt.
Lian noted that a certain operation, called Trust Not One, resulted in countless high -profile arrests and the seizure of substantial amounts, while the subsequent operation did something similar last year.
“Then there are the raids on illegal mining points in places such as Chachoengsao and Surat Thani, where they caught people stealing electricity to provide their rigs with power,” Lian added. “That is another sign that they keep an eye on dark crypto activities.”
Lian repeated that the Thai police are at zero on fraudsters, extortion and thieves much more than the crypto room in general, although it also has a zero tolerance policy for platforms that do not register with the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The SEC has encouraged to also block trade fairs without a permit, as they did last year with Bybit and others, but that is more about regulating the space than closing,” he explained.
Thailand and Crypto
But in general the cryptocurrency industry in Thailand is growing healthy: the Southeast Asian nation is in 16th place in Chainalysis’ 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index, while saw a little more than $ 50 billion received in Cryptocurrency value between July 2023 and July 2024.
The SEC from Thailand has also been busy updating its rules on cryptocurrency investments for mutual and private funds, in an attempt to attract more legitimate investments in space.
“Plus, with the SEC now eye-bulging place Bitcoin ETFs and stablecoins, it seems that they try to find out how they can manage it,” says Lian, referring to the announcement of the SEC in January that it can start by allowing local Bitcoin exchange funds.
Such movements mean that Thailand is somewhere in the middle of Southeast -Asian jurisdictions when it comes to crypto regulations, not as liberal as Singapore, but “no total lock like China,” says Lian.
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