Combating Transnational Organized Crime in Thailand

Globalization is described as the removal of barriers to facilitate the movement of goods and funds across national borders. However, this phenomenon has also benefited transnational organized crime networks by providing them opportunities to create new markets for illicit goods and services or infiltrate businesses or governments. In addition, the nature of criminal activities has changed due to the actions of organized criminal groups that commit crimes in one state but carry out the majority of their preparation, planning, direction, and participation in another state. As a result, transnational organized crime activities have an effect on the criminalization and collection of evidence in various countries based on their respective criminal law systems. Thailand, in particular, has experienced a disproportionate share of the direct effects of transnational organized crime due to its location as a source, destination, and receiving country for transnational criminal organizations. This puts Thailand at risk for offenses, such as human trafficking and drug trafficking, that are committed by transnational criminal groups. Combating transnational organized crime is one of the international community’s most significant challenges. On the one hand, this is because international laws require an explicit definition of transnational organized crime. On the other hand, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) has aimed to make transnational organized crime as broad and adaptable as possible in order to combat future instances of organized crime. Thus, measures to combat transnational organized crime must consider the concepts governed by international laws, especially transnational criminal law. The purpose of this study was to seek and examine the adoption of applicable international laws, related international and regional conventions, model treaties, and agreements for combating transnational organized crime in Thailand. As a result, the success of prosecuting transnational organized crime at all levels has increased the interest in cooperating with other countries and international, regional, and national organizations to fight against it. However, this study contended that although Thailand has domestic laws in place to combat transnational organized crime, there are challenges to prosecuting crimes, such as corruption, money laundering, participation in organized criminal groups, obstruction of justice, and other related offenses. Hence, this study demonstrated that Thailand needs to improve its operations in cooperative efforts, legal framework, administrative measures, political issues, and corruption. Therefore, this study calls on international and regional organizations and the Thai government to address the highlighted challenges and suppress and prevent them through international cooperation and following international standards. Finally, the study suggests several recommendations for improving the fight against transnational organized crime at all levels