Thai officials have traced an additional US$620 million in assets of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and will freeze them as they investigate his alleged corruption, a government official said yesterday.
Last week, the Assets Examination Committee (AEC) froze 52.88 billion baht of Thakisn's money, believed to be proceeds from the sale of his telecommunications firm Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean government investment company in January last year.
But the government said 20 billion baht was missing from the 74.3 billion baht sale.
"The AEC tracked the money trail and found that more than 20 billion baht was shifted to the accounts of companies instead of to individual accounts. AEC is set to freeze those accounts," Auditor General Jaruvan Maintaka said.
The AEC has frozen Thaksin's assets pending his trial on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
On Tuesday police ordered Thaksin to return home to face charges that he concealed his ownership of millions of dollars worth of shares from the Thai stock exchange. The charges are unrelated to the Shin Corp sale.
Police said they have strong evidence that Thaksin and his wife Pojamarn secretly held shares through nominee companies in SC Asset Corp, a Shinawatra family real estate company. He said they must present themselves to police between June 26 and June 29.
The order that he report by June 29 came just a day after state prosecutors said they would seek to have him and his wife tried for a suspicious land deal.
The order gives Thaksin a deadline for returning home for the first time since he was ousted in a coup last September while he was in New York. He has divided his time since then between a residence in London and travel around Asia. His wife and other family members continue to live in Thailand, but frequently travel abroad.
Thaksin became a billionaire in the telecommunications sector before entering politics.
Thaksin was ousted after demonstrations calling for him to step down because of alleged corruption and abuse of power.
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