A Vietnamese property tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday (Apr 11) over her role in a 304 trillion dong (US$12.46 billion) financial fraud case, the country’s biggest on record.
Truong My Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in Ho Chi Minh City.
A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all her defence arguments.
“The defendant’s actions … eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the (Communist) Party and state,” read the verdict.
After a five-week trial, 85 others also face verdicts and sentencing on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to appropriation and violations of banking law.
Lan denied the charges and blamed her subordinates.
She and her accomplices were accused of siphoning off more than US$12.5 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which she effectively controlled through dozens of proxies, according to investigators.
From early 2018 through October 2022, when the state bailed out SCB after a run on its deposits, Lan appropriated large sums by arranging unlawful loans to shell companies, investigators said.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to US$27 billion – a figure equivalent to 6 per cent of the country’s 2023 GDP.
