Search Results for: Thailand

The USA, the European Union (EU) and the UK have released hundreds of new sanctions against Russians, Russian entities and associates overseas, one day ahead of the second anniversary of their country’s major invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

With the UK ministry of defence in December estimating that 320,000 Russian combatants have been wounded or killed in the invasion, the British government announced 50 new sanctions targeting individuals and businesses.…

The seizure of criminal proceeds has been a policy priority of the current Singaporean presidency of FATF (the Financial Action Task Force) (1). But while it and jurisdictions such as the European Union (EU) are developing reforms to boost asset recovery, more change is needed for this tactic to become a truly effective weapon against organised crime.…

A detailed UN Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) report has called on governments in east and southeast Asia to proactively prevent the growth in illicit gambling services in the region, which are being abused by money launderers. These combine physical gambling locations with online gaming, with cryptocurrency being used to stake and collect on bets along with fiat currency.…

The textile and chemical industries have welcomed new research creating laser-induced graphene (LIG) on e-textiles using laser-direct patterning technology but is looking for ways to scale-up this innovation so it can be rolled-out commercially.

A South Korean research team converted raw Kevlar textiles, synthetic fibre known for its high strength and durability, to electrically conductive LIG via ‘femtosecond’ laser pulses in ambient air (femtosecond being one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second.)…

An Interpol police operation cracking down on online financial crime across 34 countries (1) worldwide led to 3,500 arrests and saw a total USD300 million seized – USD199 million in hard currency and USD101 million in virtual assets. The global agency’s six-month HEACHI IV operation, which ran from July to December 2023, targeted seven types of cyber-enabled swindles: voice phishing, romance scams, online sextortion, investment fraud, money laundering associated with illegal online gambling, business email compromise fraud and e-commerce fraud.…

The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) has predicted that the chocolate industry will continue to face cocoa supply deficits, with its latest quarterly assessment predicting that for 2022/3, there will be 99,000 tonnes more grindings than cocoa production. As a result, global stocks will fall to 1.744 million tonnes, amidst declines in output from key production hubs Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.…

Thailand has often been overshadowed as a clothing and textile outsourcing hub, given the high profile of the industries in neighbours Vietnam and Cambodia – but its output is significant and a free trade agreement (FTA) now under negotiation with the European Union (EU) could boost its exports.…

Risk specialists predict that the current instability in China’s trust sector and China’s slowing economic growth will lead to a massive outflow of capital from China, breaching Chinese money laundering laws. That will include both the export of legally earned money in excess of Chinese capital export caps of USD50,000 per year and illicit movements of criminal proceeds.…

The Indonesian government is looking to actively support the country’s textile and clothing industry as it faces a downturn in exports, depressed by soft economies in overseas markets facing high inflation and interest rates.

Trade has indeed fallen, said the Indonesia industry ministry, which told Just Style of a decline in both exports and imports in the first half of this year (2023), with clothing and textile exports dropping by 18.7% and imports by 19.8%.…

China’s key government economic body has released restrictions on the use of iron oxide pigments and titanium dioxide, the most important white pigment used in the coatings industry. In July (2023), China’s National Development and Reform Commission and related departments issued an updated Notice on Issuing the Energy Efficiency Benchmark Levels and Baseline Levels in Key Industrial Fields, with 11 additional controls, including 11 key areas including titanium dioxide (TiO2).…