Bt7 billion seized: AMLO
The Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) has seized about Bt7 billion from convicted money-launderers and other criminals over the past 14 years of its existence, its secretary-general Seehanat Prayoonrat said yesterday.
He said that a large part of the seized assets, as much as Bt2.7 billion, was obtained last year and this year.
An estimated Bt120 billion, or about 12 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), has been involved in money laundering each year, according to the Amlo chief. The money was tied to crimes as gambling, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, tax evasion, corruption, and illegal drugs.
He said illegal gambling accounted for more than half of the laundered money. “An urgent task is to strictly enforce the money-laundering law to seize assets from gambling dens,” the Amlo chief said.
Half of the money involved in money laundering cases was cash and 80 per cent of the offences were committed by criminal gangs, he said. Local criminal groups were responsible for 55 per cent of these cases and the rest involved foreign gangs.
