Bangkok
Thailand’s military government has frozen $1.5 billion of the personal assets of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin, a prominent business tycoon, was ousted in a military coup last year while he was at a U.N. meeting in New York. Last month, the junta disbanded his political party, the country’s largest, and banned its top officials from politics. Now, it has charged Thaksin and his wife with corruption and fraud. The two have been living in exile in London since the coup. Thaksin had been considering buying a British soccer team, but the asset freeze puts the purchase in doubt.
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