Thailand's Finance Ministry is working with the gold merchants association to combat money laundering by enlisting gold shops as surveillance checkpoints. The strategy involves cross-referencing buyer data with welfare card and credit bureau records to identify suspicious large purchases, while forming a "Connect the Dot" intelligence platform with 4–5 national agencies (FPD, BOT, gold association, banks, and police). Tax collection on gold transactions is explicitly not being pursued at this time, providing some relief to the sector, though the compliance layer adds operational complexity for shop networks (7,000+ retail outlets nationwide).