Thailand Targets ‘gray Money’ With Unified Oversight Of Gold And... (2026)

Thailand reportedly plans tighter reporting, Travel Rule enforcement and a national data hub to track illicit flows across both traditional and digital assets.

Thailand has launched a campaign against so-called “gray money,” tightening oversight across physical gold markets and digital assets as part of an effort to close money-laundering loopholes, according to local reports.

The push, reportedly ordered by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, brings traditionally separate asset classes under a single framework to combat illicit finance.

Local media outlet The Nation reported that the initiative targets areas that have been exploited by criminal networks to move and store value outside the banking system. This includes gold bars, online gold platforms and crypto.

“Today, we are not only addressing modern digital threats but also ‘analogue’ financial crimes,” Charnvirakul said in a Friday meeting at the Ministry of Finance. “We must work as a single, integrated force to protect the public interest and the integrity of our financial system.”

Charnvirakul said that an integrated force is necessary to combat “constantly evolving” criminal methods. Because of this, the government plans to establish a national data hub that enables real-time monitoring and creation of risk profiles for suspicious activity.

On the gold side, the Anti-Money Laundering Office was instructed to lower the mandatory reporting threshold for physical gold purchases. At the moment, only transactions exceeding 2 million Thai baht (about $63,000) are subject to reporting requirements.

Authorities said criminals are deliberately breaking the amount into smaller purchases to avoid detection. Regulators are also considering new business taxes and stricter audit requirements for online gold trading platforms.

For digital assets, the government ordered the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission to strictly enforce the Travel Rule.

Under this global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standard, licensed crypto asset service providers must collect and transmit identifying information about both the sender and recipient of certain transactions, particularly in wallet-to-wallet transfers facilitated by exchanges.

Source: CoinTelegraph