Glossary

Short, plain-language definitions of the terms that come up across the guides on this site.

AMLO (Anti-Money Laundering Office): Thailand's anti-money laundering authority. Investigates money laundering and terrorism financing, and can freeze the assets of individuals tied to criminal networks — including large-scale investment scam operations. See the regulators guide.
Boiler room: A high-pressure sales operation — often a real office with staff cold-calling or messaging targets — that sells fake or worthless securities using scripted urgency tactics. The name comes from the cramped, high-pressure call-center conditions these operations were historically run in. See Ponzi, MLM & fake trading.
BOT (Bank of Thailand): Thailand's central bank. Regulates banks, and licenses non-bank lenders (P-Loan, Nano Finance, e-Money apps) and foreign exchange businesses. See regulators guide.
DBD (Department of Business Development): The Ministry of Commerce agency that handles company registration in Thailand. A DBD registration confirms a company legally exists — it says nothing about whether it holds a financial license. See company registration guide.
KYC / AML (Know Your Customer / Anti-Money Laundering): Standard identity-verification and monitoring rules that licensed financial institutions must follow. A platform that never asks for identity verification before accepting large deposits is skipping a step every real regulated business is required to take.
Mule account: A bank account used to receive and quickly move stolen or scammed funds, often belonging to someone recruited — sometimes unknowingly — to pass money along for a fee. Payment requested to a personal account instead of a business one is one of the clearest warning signs.
MLM (Multi-Level Marketing): A structure that rewards participants for recruiting new members, on top of — or instead of — selling any real product. Many investment scams borrow this recruitment layer to grow faster than a straightforward Ponzi scheme could alone. See Ponzi, MLM & fake trading.
Pig-butchering (sha zhu pan): A scam pattern that opens with a fake relationship — a dating-app match, a 'wrong number' text — built over weeks before an 'investment opportunity' appears. See romance scams guide.
Ponzi scheme: A scheme that pays early investors with money from later investors rather than real profit — it collapses once new deposits can no longer outpace withdrawals. See Ponzi, MLM & fake trading.
SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission Thailand): Thailand's securities regulator. Licenses brokers, dealers, underwriters, fund managers and digital asset (crypto) businesses. See regulators guide.