3 min read
Thailand's central bank has turned data-analytics tools on the country's stablecoin market, scanning high-volume trades for signs of illicit money as part of a widening crackdown on the shadow economy.
Bank of Thailand Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said the central bank has begun screening abnormally large stablecoin transactions, particularly in Tether's USDT, and has already flagged some that appear designed to sidestep disclosure requirements or move funds outside normal banking channels, according to Thai outlet Thansettakij.
Because the Securities and Exchange Commission, rather than the central bank, directly regulates digital assets in Thailand, the Bank of Thailand is coordinating with the SEC, which holds the authority to act on the findings. USDT is the largest stablecoin and the most widely used trading pair on crypto exchanges, according to CoinGecko data.
The stablecoin screening is one strand of a broad campaign against what Thai officials call the "grey economy," an effort the governor cast as a long haul requiring several measures running in parallel rather than any quick fix. Since April, banks have had to check the purpose of cash withdrawals of 5 million baht (about $150,000) or more, a rule the central bank says cut large cash withdrawals by roughly 35%. From the fourth quarter, depositors bringing in 5 million baht or more in cash may have to declare where it came from.
Regulators are also tightening controls on high-value banknote exchanges and gold trading, where officials noticed buyers ordering gold through an app in the morning and collecting it from shops in the afternoon. Suspicious activity is now reported to Thailand's Anti-Money Laundering Office, and monthly gold withdrawals have fallen from about 4,000 kilograms to around 700. Banks have separately closed thousands of "mule" accounts linked to online gambling.
Thailand has become a hotspot for crypto-enabled crime, and its agencies have been chasing it aggressively. Thai police recently traced a romance-scam laundering network in which a single wallet moved more than $122.5 million in 10 months through cross-chain swaps, as part of Interpol’s Operation First Light. In recent months, investigators have also widened a mining probe into a $300 million Chinese laundering network and seized $8.6 million in illegal mining rigs powering scam compounds.
At the same time, the country is courting legitimate crypto: the SEC's three-year plan pushes tokenization and crypto ETFs, and the central bank says it is working to develop a baht-backed stablecoin as part of a broader financial-infrastructure overhaul.
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