Section 269/4: Using, possessing or selling a forged electronic card
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดใช้หรือมีไว้เพื่อใช้ซึ่งสิ่งใด ๆ ตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๑ อันได้มาโดยรู้ว่าเป็นของที่ทำปลอมหรือแปลงขึ้น ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่หนึ่งปีถึงเจ็ดปี หรือปรับตั้งแต่สองหมื่นบาทถึงหนึ่งแสนสี่หมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ ผู้ใดจำหน่ายหรือมีไว้เพื่อจำหน่ายซึ่งสิ่งใด ๆ ที่ทำปลอมหรือแปลงขึ้นตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๑ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่หนึ่งปีถึงสิบปี หรือปรับตั้งแต่สองหมื่นบาทถึงสองแสนบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ ถ้าผู้กระทำความผิดตามวรรคแรกหรือวรรคสองเป็นผู้ปลอมซึ่งบัตรอิเล็กทรอนิกส์ตามมาตรา ๒๖๙/๑ ให้ลงโทษตามมาตรานี้แต่กระทงเดียว
English translation
Whoever uses, or possesses for use, anything under Section 269/1 that was acquired with knowledge that it had been forged or altered shall be liable to imprisonment from one year to seven years, or a fine from twenty thousand baht to one hundred forty thousand baht, or both.
Whoever sells, or possesses for sale, anything forged or altered under Section 269/1 shall be liable to imprisonment from one year to ten years, or a fine from twenty thousand baht to two hundred thousand baht, or both.
If the offender under paragraph one or paragraph two is the person who forged the electronic card under Section 269/1, that offender shall be punished under this Section as a single offence only.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 269/4 is the downstream offence of the card chapter and has three paragraphs. Paragraph one covers using, or possessing for use, anything under Section 269/1 that was acquired with knowledge that it had been forged or altered. Knowledge at the time of acquisition is an express element, so a person who innocently received a cloned card and later discovers the fact is outside paragraph one on its wording. Paragraph two covers selling, or possessing for sale, and carries a higher maximum of ten years, reflecting the greater harm of distribution. Note that unlike Sections 269/1 to 269/3, the penalties here are alternative, imprisonment or a fine or both, so a fine only sentence is legally available. Paragraph three is a merger rule: where the offender is also the person who forged the card under Section 269/1, he is punished under this Section as a single offence, not cumulatively for forging and then using. That mirrors Section 268 paragraph two in the document chapter. Section 269/7 again increases these penalties by one half for payment and cash withdrawal cards.
Why this matters in practice
Two points matter to anyone facing these charges. First, possession with intent is enough under both paragraphs, so no completed transaction is needed; the fight is over what the cards were held for. Second, the merger rule in paragraph three is worth pleading, because prosecutors routinely charge forging under Section 269/1 and using under this Section as separate counts, and the statute says the offender is punished once. Where money was actually withdrawn or goods obtained, theft under Section 334 or fraud under Section 341 is charged alongside, and those counts are not merged by paragraph three. Exposure on a payment card, after the Section 269/7 uplift, runs to fifteen years on the sale limb.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2490/2558 (2015)
Possessing forged payment cards for use, where each card is intended to be used separately in a manner likely to cause damage, constitutes several distinct offences under Section 269/4, one per card.
Charged under Sections 269/1, 269/2, 269/4, and 269/7, the defendants were held to have committed five counts of jointly possessing electronic cards for use, because each forged card was intended for separate use.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 1517/2564 (2021)
Using or possessing for use a forged payment card under Section 269/4 supports conviction alongside document forgery and theft, since the card is treated as both an electronic card and a right document.
In a multi-count prosecution under Sections 264, 265, 266, 269/1, 269/2, 269/4, and 269/7 with theft under Section 334, the defendant was convicted under Section 269/4 paragraph one read with Section 269/7 among several counts.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 8 Supreme Court decisions (2004 to 2021)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 8035/2555 (2012)
- Decision 16000/2553 (2010)
- Decision 5345/2550 (2007)
- Decision 2490/2558 (2015)
- Decision 12582/2547 (2004)
- Decision 1517/2564 (2021)
- Decision 11227/2555 (2012)
- Decision 3499/2552 (2009)
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 91 7
- Section 269/7 7
- Section 78 7
- Section 33 6
- Section 265 5
- Section 269/1 5
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
Frequently asked questions
Is holding a forged card a crime even if I never used it?
Yes. Section 269/4 punishes possessing a forged electronic card for the purpose of use, and separately possessing one for the purpose of sale, so liability can arise from possession with that intention even without a completed transaction.
What penalty applies under Section 269/4?
Using, or possessing for use, carries imprisonment from one to seven years, or a fine from 20,000 to 140,000 baht, or both. Selling, or possessing for sale, carries imprisonment from one to ten years, or a fine from 20,000 to 200,000 baht, or both. Where the card is one issued to a person entitled to use it for payment or for withdrawing cash, Section 269/7 makes the punishment one half heavier.
If I forged the card myself and then used it, am I punished twice?
No. Paragraph three provides that where the offender under paragraph one or paragraph two is also the person who forged the electronic card under Section 269/1, that offender is punished under Section 269/4 as a single offence only.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 269/4 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 269/4. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-4/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 269/4 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-4/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-4/"><p>Whoever uses, or possesses for use, anything under Section 269/1 that was acquired with knowledge that it had been forged or altered shall be liable to imprisonment from one year to seven years, or a fine from twenty thousand baht to one hundred forty thousand…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 269/4 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-269-4/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.