Thailand Law Journal 2011 Fall Issue 2 Volume 14

1. Nature of Predicate Offences

Some crimes consist of an individual act that does not involve any intent to make money, for example, murder and sexual assault. These crimes should not be included as predicate offences because they will not generate money to be laundered. Seehanat Prayoonrat, Thai practitioner and scholar, opines that the predicate offences whose nature is consistent with the intent of the anti-money laundering law should be as follows:

•  the crime is organized;
• the crime nets high proceeds;
• the crime is conducted sophisticatedly and cannot be suppressed easily; and
• the crime harms the state's economic security.²⁰

            2. Type of Predicate Offences

            Predicate offences can be classified into two types:

            a. International predicate offences

Most states view crimes such as arms and drug trafficking as harmful to both national and world security.²¹ Thus, almost all states should specify these crimes as predicate offences.²² This ensures that criminals engaged in such crimes cannot simply move their activities to states that do not specify these crimes as predicate offences.

            b. Internal predicate offences

But states can also have their own distinctive problems, such as tax evasion and illegal gambling, the harms of which do not affect other states.²³ Defining these crimes as predicate offences therefore depends on internal policy considerations of individual states.²⁴ Thailand faces a widespread illegal gambling problem.²⁵ Most adolescents and young adults, as well as some workers, spend time gambling illegally, for example, on the outcome of soccer games.²⁶ Over 200 billion Baht (approximately five billion U.S. dollars) a year are spent on illegal gambling.²⁷ Consequently, Thai Anti-Money Laundering Act includes illegal gambling as a predicate offence.²⁸
           
B. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crimes (the "Palermo Convention")

            1. Overview

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the Palermo Convention at its meeting on November 15, 2000.²⁹ The Palermo Convention included two important protocols: The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, Especially Women and Children³⁰, and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air.³¹ States that would like to become a party to one or both of the

Protocols must be a party to the Palermo Convention.³²
           
The international community has developed international instruments like the Palermo Convention and its two Protocols in recognition of the fact that new crimes are transnational.³³ In addition, co-operation between the countries, which is significant in solving a transnational organized crime problem, has become much more severe in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.³⁴

Due to the globalization of economic systems and the development in transportation and technologies, individuals have more opportunities to communicate with each other and to develop their economic opportunities, for example, conducting international trade or business.³⁵ However, not only honest people but also organized crime benefit from such development and globalization.³⁶

Over 100 member states participated in negotiating the Palermo Convention and its Protocols.³⁷ This shows that most states in the world agree that transnational crimes require transnational cooperation.³⁸ Article 1 of the Palermo Convention thus defines its purpose in part as "to promote cooperation to prevent and combat transnational organized crime more effectively."

Many provisions of the Palermo Convention provide tools for law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies. These are intended to encourage and coordinate prevention efforts³⁹ and to support and protect victims.⁴⁰ Although many of these already exist in the domestic laws of member states, some states do not have them.⁴¹

The intent of the Palermo Convention is:

            [1] to encourage the countries which do not have such provision in their law to adopt comprehensive measures;
            [2] to provide them with the some guidelines in respect of how to approach the related legislative and policy questions; and
            [3] to increase the standard and coordination of national policy, legislative, administrative and enforcement approaches to the problem to ensure a more efficient and effective global effort to solve the problem.⁴²

            2. Obligation in respect of combating money laundering

Money laundering is necessary for transnational organized crime to conceal its dirty money.⁴³ This is because if money is not laundered, it is easy for enforcement officials to detect and then confiscate its dirty money.⁴⁴ This will limit transnational organized crime's ability to reinvest and further the crimes. Therefore, the Palermo Convention's strategy is to weaken transnational organized crime's ability to launder its dirty money.⁴⁵