BANGKOK, May 2 – Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) on Thursday is finalising the first batch of 60 local terrorists and will seek the civil court’s order on banning their financial transactions.
AMLO secretary-general Sihanart Prayoonrat reported progress on the matter as he called a meeting of concerned agencies including security bodies, law enforcement officials and financial institutions ahead of the visit of an inter-governmental body, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), on May 7-8.
Pol Col Sihanart said the task force will assess Thailand’s actions to effectively deal with money laundering and financing of terrorism whether it follows international standard practices or not.
The visit came as Thailand expects its name to be removed from the FATF ‘grey list’ of countries at risk of money laundering by terrorist groups
The AMLO chief said the FATF will evaluate the enforcement of the country’s anti-money laundering law. The assessment will be reported to the FATF June meeting where the removal of grey list countries will be considered.
After the country’s concerned laws have been enforced, Col Sihanart said AMLO has announced a list of the United Nations’ international terrorists and is now considering a list of Thai terrorists.
There are now 60 Thailand names of terrorists, most of them operating in far South, revealed Col Sihanart.
He said that AMLO is collecting evidence and will submit it to the Civil Court to issue a ban on financial transactions of the suspects.
Col Sihanart noted that the process will take time as this is a new issue for Thailand.
He added that ‘terrorist’ in this case means any person who acts as terrorist or financially supports the terrorism constantly. There are about 4,000 people with outstanding arrest warrants, but those who have been charged for terrorism in the political upheaval are not included on the AMLO list.
