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The Munich newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Thaksin had last summer obtained a 90day visa to visit Germany. Then, on December 29, 2008 in Bonn, he obtained a oneyear residency permit, picking it up in person without federal officials noticing.

The newspaper said the permit was cancelled at Berlin's demand on May 28. It was not clear from the report where Thaksin was living now. The paper said he was using a Nicaraguan diplomatic passport. His Thai passport has been revoked.

The Sueddeutsche said the discovery that a Bonn immigration office had issued Thaksin a permit triggered interagency suspicions in the German federal government. But neither the Foreign Ministry nor the BND foreignintelligence service had known about the permit.

It said the billionaire, who stated he was living in Bonn's elegant suburb of Bad Godesberg, had been accompanied to the immigration office by a respected lawyer, a retired German police commander and a freelance troubleshooter, Werner Mauss.

It said the clerk was given to understand that Mauss, 69, represented the BND. German diplomats, furious that German relations with Thailand had been endangered, initially accused the BND of engineering the visa. But Mauss had apparently acted independently.