Thai police have raided the offices of five unlicensed cryptocurrency firms, arresting 11 employees as part of a wider crackdown on illicit crypto-related activities within Thailand.
Officers from the Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) had received warrants to search the premises of five companies operating in the provinces of Nakhon Pathom, Samut Sakhon and Bangkok.
ECD commander Thatphum Jaruprat said that the 11 arrested individuals included a mix of executives and less senior employees, with police also seizing six computers and other evidence.
An investigation by the ECD had determined that the arrested individuals had been illegally operating e-money firms with a combined annual turnover of approximately one billion baht, or $29.3 million.
The raided firms had allegedly acted as intermediaries for local investors wishing to buy investment products sold overseas, requiring customers to transfer money into e-wallets in order to complete the cross-border purchases.
Thailand strictly regulates forex-based e-money businesses, with its 2017 Payment System Act requiring all such enterprises to register and secure licensing.
Yet according to the ECD, the firms’ failure to register created a money laundering risk, while it also damaged the economy by enabling capital flight.
The police have charged the 11 suspects with providing unlicensed electronic money services, and it’s not the first time this year that authorities have cracked down on illegal crypto activity.
Thailand’s crypto crackdown
January saw Thailand’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau propose a ban on Polymarket, arguing that the crypto-based prediction marketplace creates “economic and social risks.”
Last month, Thai and Chinese police froze cryptocurrencies worth around $2.5 million after arresting two Chinese individuals later charged with fraud and human trafficking.
And only today, Binance TH reported that Thailand has seen one of the biggest increases worldwide in investment complaints and damage, with the exchange receiving over 1,000 data requests from police over the past three years.
Such actions may invite the suspicion that Thailand is cracking down on crypto, yet Singapore-based intergovernmental blockchain advisor Anndy Lian argues that Thai authorities are focused mostly on bad actors.
“You’ve got the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) working with folks like Binance to bust pig butchering scams—those nasty romance-investment hybrids that have ripped off millions,” he told Decrypt.
Lian noted that one particular operation, named Trust No One, resulted in numerous high-profile arrests and the seizure of substantial sums, while subsequent operation The Purge did something similar last year.
“Then there’s the raids on illegal mining ops in places like Chachoengsao and Surat Thani, where they caught people stealing electricity to power their rigs,” Lian added. “That’s another sign they’re keeping an eye on shady crypto activities.”
Lian reiterated that Thai police are zeroing in on fraudsters, extortionists and thieves much more than the crypto space more generally, although it also has a zero-tolerance policy for platforms that do not register with the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The SEC’s been pushing to block unlicensed exchanges too, like they did with Bybit and others last year, but that’s more about regulating the space than shutting it down,” he explained.
Thailand and crypto
But in general, the cryptocurrency industry in Thailand is growing healthily: the Southeast Asian nation ranked 16th in Chainalysis’ 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index, while it saw just over $50 billion in cryptocurrency value received between July 2023 and July 2024.
Thailand’s SEC has also been busy updating its rules surrounding cryptocurrency investment for mutual and private funds, in a bid to attract more legitimate investment in the space.
“Plus, with the SEC now eyeballing spot Bitcoin ETFs and stablecoins, it seems like they’re trying to figure out how to manage it, not kill it,” says Lian, referring to the SEC’s January announcement that it may begin permitting local Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Such moves mean that Thailand sits somewhere in the middle of Southeast Asian jurisdictions when it comes to crypto regulations, not quite as liberal as Singapore but “not a total lockdown like China,” according to Lian.
