FIGHTING TERRORIST FINANCING IN THAILAND

C O N F I D E N T I A L BANGKOK 002013 SIPDIS STATE FOR EB/ESC/TFS, EB/EPPD, S/CT. IO/PSC TREASURY FOR OASIA AND OFAC E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2015 TAGS: EFIN PTER ETTC KTFN TH SUBJECT: FIGHTING TERRORIST FINANCING IN THAILAND REF: A. SECSTATE 32688 ¶B. 04 BANGKOK 6573 ¶C. 04 BANGKOK 1533 ¶D. 03 BANGKOK 7909 ¶E. TD-314/52952-04 ¶F. TD-314/09719-05 ¶G. TD-314/03144-05 ¶H. TD-314/46202-04 Classified By: ECONOMIC COUSELOR M. DELANEY FOR REASONS 1.4 B&D ¶1. (S) The following responds to reftel A questions regarding RTG efforts to combat terrorist financing: (A) The RTG has not seized, frozen or forfeited any assets under UN Security Council resolutions 1267 or 1373. The Thai Anti-Money Laundering Act of B.E. 2542 (1999) makes "offenses related to terrorism" one of eight predicate criminal offenses and establishes a system for seizure and forfeiture of such assets. Regulations require all bank transactions above Bt 2million (US$52,140) or any "suspicious activity" to be reported to the Anti-money laundering office. This requirement is being extended to any enterprise that deals in large volumes of cash. (B) Thailand has thus far not co-sponsored any designations of terrorists to the UN 1267 Committee, preferring to act in unison with other ASEAN countries. This is unlikely to change. (C) There is excellent cooperation between U.S. and Thai law enforcement and intelligence agencies and many Thai officials have received U.S. training. The RTG is amenable to additional training but has not identified any particular areas in which they feel they lack capability. (D)" Medium". While the banking system is now sufficiently automated so as to track names and patterns of suspicious activity, there is a high incidence of large cash transactions in the economy in general. The RTG is aware of this problem and attempting to deal with it by adjusting regulations and working with informal money exchanges, gold and diamond dealers and used car dealers. BOYCE