Section 248: Single punishment for the counterfeiter who also uses
Statutory text (Thai original)
ถ้าผู้กระทำความผิดตามมาตรา ๒๔๐ มาตรา ๒๔๑ หรือมาตรา ๒๔๗ ได้กระทำความผิดตามมาตราอื่นที่บัญญัติไว้ในหมวดนี้อันเกี่ยวกับสิ่งที่ตนปลอมหรือแปลงนั้นด้วย ให้ลงโทษผู้นั้นตามมาตรา ๒๔๐ มาตรา ๒๔๑ หรือมาตรา ๒๔๗ แต่กระทงเดียว
English translation
If a person who commits an offence under Section 240, Section 241, or Section 247 also commits an offence under another Section provided in this Chapter in relation to the thing that person counterfeited or altered, that person shall be punished under Section 240, Section 241, or Section 247, as the case may be, as a single offence only.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 248 creates no offence and prescribes no penalty. It is a rule about how to punish a person who has already offended under Section 240 (counterfeiting currency), Section 241 (altering currency) or Section 247 (those acts done to foreign currency), and who then also offends under another section of this Chapter in relation to the very thing that person counterfeited or altered. In that case the court punishes under Section 240, Section 241 or Section 247 alone, as a single offence. So a counterfeiter who afterwards holds the notes in order to put them into use under Section 243, or puts them into circulation, is not punished twice: the later dealing is absorbed into the counterfeiting. Two limits matter. The rule benefits only the person who did the counterfeiting or altering, so a confederate who merely passes the notes is punished under his own section in the ordinary way. And it applies only to the same thing that person made, so dealings in other counterfeit currency remain separate offences. Section 263 is the equivalent rule in the chapter on seals, stamps and tickets.
Why this matters in practice
ในทางปฏิบัติ มาตรานี้เป็นข้อที่ควรยกขึ้นต่อสู้เมื่อพนักงานอัยการฟ้องหลายกระทงจากการกระทำชุดเดียวกัน เช่น ฟ้องทั้งฐานปลอมเงินตราตามมาตรา 240 และฐานมีไว้เพื่อนำออกใช้ตามมาตรา 244 เพราะกฎหมายกำหนดให้ลงโทษตามมาตรา 240 แต่กระทงเดียว สิ่งที่ต้องแสดงคือความผิดอื่นนั้นเกี่ยวกับสิ่งที่จำเลยปลอมหรือแปลงเอง มิใช่ของที่ได้มาจากผู้อื่น ทั้งนี้บทนี้ใช้ภายในหมวดความผิดเกี่ยวกับเงินตราเท่านั้น ความผิดตามหมวดอื่น เช่น ฉ้อโกง ไม่อยู่ในบังคับของมาตรานี้
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 901/2565 (2022)
Possessing counterfeit banknotes of a foreign government for circulation is a separate offence from any accompanying fraud, because the two acts involve different criminal intents.
The defendant and others held counterfeit euro banknotes of a foreign government for circulation and also committed fraud. The Court held that possessing the counterfeit foreign banknotes for circulation was a separate offence from the fraud, as the two involved different criminal intents, and the charges included Section 248.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 3986/2564 (2021)
Keeping a large quantity of counterfeit foreign banknotes at home in a state ready to be used or passed to others constitutes possessing them for circulation under the currency offences.
The defendant kept many counterfeit foreign banknotes at home, ready to use or hand to others, and displayed them to an undercover officer. The Court held this amounted to possessing counterfeit currency for circulation.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 13 Supreme Court decisions (1960 to 2023)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 6126/2540 (1997)
- Decision 553/2536 (1993)
- Decision 1969/2505 (1962)
- Decision 4930/2557 (2014)
- Decision 332/2503 (1960)
- Decision 92/2521 (1978)
- Decision 901/2565 (2022)
- Decision 3986/2564 (2021)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 244 13
- Section 240 12
- Section 91 10
- Section 247 10
- Section 78 8
- Section 246 8
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 248 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 248. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-248/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 248 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-248/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-248/"><p>If a person who commits an offence under Section 240, Section 241, or Section 247 also commits an offence under another Section provided in this Chapter in relation to the thing that person counterfeited or altered, that person shall be punished under Section 240, Section…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 248 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-248/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.