A real estate tycoon has been sentenced to death in Vietnam in what is one of the largest financial fraud cases in the country’s history, with damages estimated at $27 billion.
Truong My Lan, chairman of major property developer Van Thinh Phat, was charged with fraud worth $12.5 billion, nearly 3 percent of the country’s GDP in 2022.
She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 to divert these funds through thousands of shell companies and paying bribes to government officials.
More than a dozen police cars and vans carrying the accused – a list that includes former central bankers, former government officials and former SCB executives – arrived at the colonial-era court early in the morning. tomorrow.
After a five-week trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Lan and 85 others faced verdicts and sentences on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to appropriation and violations of banking law.
Lan was found to have embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday that the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to $27 billion, a figure equivalent to six percent of the country’s GDP in 2023. 67-year-old woman denied the charges and blamed her subordinates.
Truong My Lan (center), chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings, sits during her trial at the People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City.
Lan was sentenced for embezzling $12.5 billion. Prosecutors said Thursday that the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to $27 billion.
After a five-week trial in the business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, Lan and 85 others face verdicts and sentences on Thursday.
Prosecutors have asked that Lan face the death penalty, an unusually harsh punishment in a case like this.
Most of the defendants sat in the courtroom with their heads bowed Thursday, although Lan could be seen fidgeting and looking up from the front row.
Prosecutors are asking that Lan face the death penalty, an unusually harsh punishment in such a case.
She and the others were arrested as part of a nationwide crackdown on corruption that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
Lan appeared to say in his closing statements in court last week that he had suicidal thoughts.
“In my desperation, I thought about death,” he said, according to state media.
“I’m so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this cut-throat business environment, the banking industry, that I have little knowledge of.”
Hundreds of people began organizing protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare occurrence in the one-party communist state, after Lan’s arrest in October 2022.
Police have identified some 42,000 victims of the scandal that has shocked the Southeast Asian country.
Do Thi Nhan, former head of the inspection team at the State Bank of Vietnam, told the court that she had been offered a bribe.
Lan denied the charges and blamed his subordinates. In the photo: some of the defendants at the trial.
The real estate magnate could face the death penalty if convicted of embezzling $12.5 billion.
Lan, who is married to a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who is also on trial, is accused of creating false loan applications to withdraw money from SCB, in which she owned a 90 percent stake.
Police say the victims of the scam are all SCB bondholders who cannot withdraw their money and have not received interest or principal payments since Lan’s arrest.
Prosecutors said during the trial that they had seized more than 1,000 properties belonging to Lan.
Authorities have also said that $5.2 million allegedly given by Lan and some SCB bankers to state officials to conceal the bank’s violations and poor financial condition was the largest bribe ever recorded in Vietnam.
The woman who was offered the bribe, Do Thi Nhan, former head of the inspection team at the State Bank of Vietnam, said during the trial that former SCB CEO Vo Tan Van gave her the money in cash boxes. polystyrene.
A prominent Vietnamese luxury property tycoon, Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group, was sentenced to eight years in prison last month.
After realizing they contained money, Nhan rejected the boxes, but Van refused to take them back, state media reported.
More than 4,400 people have been charged during Vietnam’s corruption crackdown, in more than 1,700 corruption cases, since 2021.
A prominent Vietnamese luxury property tycoon, Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group, was sentenced to eight years in prison last month after being found guilty of defrauding thousands of investors in a bond scam worth 355 million dollars.