Thailand's Supreme Court: Bitcoin Is Property, and 10 Years Stands for a $50,000 Koh Samui Robbery

On 15 September 2022, a Russian man who worked in real estate on the Thai holiday island of Koh Samui was sitting with his wife in a coffee shop in Taling Ngam, on the island's west coast, when a group of foreign men walked up to their table. Some had arrived in a black van, the others on a rented red motorbike. They told the couple they had been watching the family for a long time. One of them, the court later heard, mentioned that he had once been jailed in a child kidnapping case. The wife was afraid for their young child.

The men punched the husband in the face and ears and took his phone. Then they made him use it. Under their watch he spent US$50,000 buying bitcoin and sent all of it, 2.480801 BTC, worth about 1,878,000 baht that day, to a digital wallet belonging to one of the gang. The men left by van and motorbike. Four years later, that transfer became the case in which Thailand's highest court decided what bitcoin is.

On 28 October 2026, the Supreme Court of Thailand, known in Thai as the Dika Court, made public judgment No. 4929/2569 (2569 is the year 2026 in the Thai Buddhist calendar). The question had been sent to the court's plenary session, a full sitting of its judges that is reserved for important points of law. Its answer: bitcoin is property, so taking it by force is robbery. The court upheld a 10-year prison sentence for a man who helped the gang, and the order that the bitcoin be handed back to the victim or its value of 1,878,000 baht be paid instead.

The man who booked the ferry

The man in the dock was not one of the five at the table. The published summary of the judgment identifies him only as "Mr A." and sets out what he did. On 13 September 2022 he messaged a Russian car rental owner in Chonburi on WhatsApp and borrowed a black van, saying he needed it to collect a friend. He picked up one of the gang at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. On the night of 14 September he drove south from Pattaya and crossed to Koh Samui by ferry, arriving early on the day of the robbery. The group rented a resort room and two Honda Click motorbikes. He took the room next door, helped scout the spot, and bought the ferry tickets online that got the men off the island afterwards.

The five men who did the threatening were two Kazakh nationals, two Germans and a Russian, according to the judgment summary reported by the Thai crypto news site Siam Blockchain. Thai police described the gang the same way in 2022.

The Koh Samui Provincial Public Prosecutor's Office charged him under several sections of the Thai Penal Code, including robbery by three or more people (Section 340), robbery using a vehicle (Section 340 ter), coercion and assault. He pleaded not guilty. The trial court found him guilty as a co-principal, the Thai legal term for someone who shares in a crime as a partner rather than a bystander, and sentenced him to 15 years. It then cut the term by a third, to 10 years, under Section 78 of the Penal Code, because his evidence had been useful to the court. The Court of Appeal for Region 8, which hears appeals from southern Thailand, upheld the verdict.

"No intrinsic value"

At the Supreme Court he tried a different defence. He did not deny the trip. He argued that bitcoin has no intrinsic value and no physical form, so it cannot be "another person's property", and without property there can be no robbery.

Bitcoin is a digital currency. It has no notes or coins; it is an entry on a shared public record, controlled by a secret key that works like a password. Whoever holds the key can send the coins anywhere in the world in minutes, and no bank can reverse the transfer. That is what makes the argument possible: nothing physical changed hands at the coffee shop.

The court rejected it. Thailand's Civil and Commercial Code separates two ideas. Section 137 covers physical objects. Section 138 covers a wider category of property that includes things without a physical body, as long as they have a price and can be owned. The court pointed to the 2018 Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Businesses, which defines cryptocurrency as a unit of electronic data created on a network and used as a medium of exchange, and which puts it under the supervision of Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission. It noted a letter from the Bank of Thailand saying cryptocurrency is not legal tender and that its price swings, partly on speculation. None of that mattered, the court said. Bitcoin has a market price that anyone can check on price sites such as CoinMarketCap, it can be sold for cash when a buyer exists, and ordinary people can hold it. In the words of the summary, translated from Thai, the court "therefore held that what was transferred is property, and the elements of a property offence are satisfied."

The court kept two questions apart. Bitcoin is not money: no shop in Thailand has to accept it, just as no shop has to accept a share certificate as payment. It is still a thing of value that belongs to someone, and that is all the robbery law asks.

Why the label matters

If bitcoin were not property, a gang that forced a man to empty his wallet could only be charged with lesser offences such as coercion and assault, and a court would struggle to order the coins returned, frozen or traced. Every recovery order in a crypto theft depends on a judge first deciding that the coins belong to somebody.

Courts in other countries reached the same answer earlier, mostly in civil cases about getting money back. In December 2019, England's High Court treated bitcoin as property in AA v Persons Unknown, so that it could freeze coins an insurer had paid to hackers as ransom. In April 2020, the High Court of New Zealand ruled in Ruscoe v Cryptopia that the coins of the hacked exchange Cryptopia were property held on trust for its customers. In July 2023, Singapore's High Court ruled in ByBit Fintech v Ho Kai Xin that 4.2 million USDT, a stablecoin (a digital dollar), taken by a payroll worker was held on trust for the exchange Bybit. On 2 December 2025, the United Kingdom's Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 put the principle into law. In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service has treated cryptocurrency as property for tax since 2014.

The Thai ruling is different in one way. It is a criminal case from the country's top court, decided by the full bench. A plenary ruling is the strongest signal the Dika Court can send, and lower courts across Thailand are expected to follow it.

A robbery that needs no vault

Robberies like the one on Koh Samui are known in the industry as wrench attacks, after the joke that the cheapest way to break the strongest password is to threaten its owner with a wrench. The blockchain security firm CertiK counted 72 verified wrench attacks worldwide in 2025, up about 75% on 2024, with confirmed losses above $40.9 million. France recorded the most, 19, ahead of the United States with eight. The crimes need no safe to crack and no getaway with heavy bags: one frightened person with a phone is enough.

That is also what made the Koh Samui case unusual. According to the couple's account to police in 2022, reported by the Thaiger and the Bangkok Post, the men first demanded $3 million in crypto. The husband said he had only about $58,000. He sent $50,000. Three days later, on 18 September, he got a call on Telegram demanding more, to be sent through the exchange Bybit. The couple had nothing left, went to the police and asked for witness protection.

At 2022 prices, when one bitcoin was worth about $20,000, the haul was $50,000. With bitcoin near $80,000 in late October 2026, the same 2.48 BTC would be worth close to $200,000. The court ordered the return of the coins themselves, or 1,878,000 baht if they cannot be returned.