Vietnam’s Hanoi (AP) Tuesday saw the upholding of the death sentence for real estate mogul Truong My Lan in Vietnam’s biggest fraud case, whose scope had sparked worries about the nation’s economy.
In April, she was found guilty of embezzlement and bribery in connection with the $12.5 billion scam, which accounted for almost 3% of Vietnam’s 2022 GDP. Between 2012 and 2022, Lan unlawfully controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank as chairperson of the Van Thinh Phat real estate company. During that time, he approved 2,500 loans that caused the bank to lose $27 billion.
According to state media, the Ho Chi Minh City court denied her appeal against the verdict and stated that if she reimburses three-fourths of the losses, or about $11 billion, her death sentence could be converted to life in prison.
According to VN Express, the court rejected her lawyers’ claim that she had paid back the money because some of the confiscated properties had legal problems and the prosecution was unable to determine their worth.
Lan’s attorneys also pointed out a number of mitigating factors, including the fact that she had expressed regret, acknowledged her guilt, and made a partial repayment.
Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, second left, attends trial in an appeal she filed against her death sentence in a financial fraud case in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Tran Quynh/VNExpress via AP)
Image: Tran Quynh/Associated Press
According to official media, she stated last week, “I feel pained due to the waste of national resources.”
However, the court ruled that her infractions had damaged public order, damaged banking, and undermined public confidence, according to VN Express.
Under Vietnamese law, death sentences aren t immediately carried out and there is an extended legal process, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute. In order to lessen her punishment, he said, Lan will request a presidential pardon or another review of the case.
Additionally, he stated that the court might think about lowering her sentence to life in prison if she returns at least three-quarters of the money that was stolen.
Her arrest was one of the most well-known in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, which grew more intense after 2022. Vietnamese politics at the highest levels were impacted by the Blazing Furnace campaign. But the scale of her fraud shocked the nation with analysts raising questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred.
Thisdampened Vietnam s economic outlookand made foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as a home for businesses pivoting their supply chains away from China.
Lan, 67, and her family had set up the Van Thing Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favor of a more market-oriented approach open to foreigners. The company grew into one of Vietnam s richest real estate firms, with luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers.
This made her a key player in the country s financial industry. She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB bank with two other lenders in coordination with Vietnam s central bank. The court said that she used this to tap SCB for cash and, according to government documents, owned more than 90% of the bank while approving thousands of loans to ghost companies.
These loans, according to state media, found their way to her and she bribed officials to cover her tracks.
The scale of the crime meant the case was split into two trials, and Lan was sentenced to another life sentence in October. At that trial, she was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by issuing bonds illegally through four companies, state media reported.
She was also found guilty of siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and for using companies controlled by her to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.
Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences in the past decade and executed more than 400 prisoners. It is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes but is typically applied for cases of murder and drug trafficking.
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