The Vietnamese real estate magnate and chairperson of Van Thinh Phat Holding Group, Truong My Lan, was charged with committing a case of loan fraud and fraud, causing a loss of 7 billion US dollars. On the 11th, she was sentenced to death by the court.
Reported by Sky News in the UK and VnExpress in Vietnam, the Truong My Lan case is the largest fraud trial in Vietnamese history. Truong My Lan and her accomplices were accused of illegally controlling Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB) between 2012 and 2022, and embezzling funds through thousands of ghost companies and bribing government officials. The BBC said that Truong My Lan’s loan amount reached 44 billion US dollars, and The Guardian said that 27 billion US dollars could not be recovered, which is equivalent to nearly 6% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2023.
Truong My Lan was arrested in October 2022 and is also one of the most high-profile cases in Vietnam’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign. The whole case was tried in court in early March. According to previous news, this case is widely involved, and officials from the central bank to the government are involved in the case, which has shocked the real estate and corporate bond markets.
According to Vietnamese media reports, the judge of the People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City pointed out that 68-year-old Truong My Lan was punished for committing three charges, including bribery, violating the bank law, and misappropriating public funds.
Even though the amount of this case is astonishing, the death penalty is an unusual heavy punishment. The BBC pointed out that many people believe that the court may want to use this to put pressure on Truong My Lan and recover as much of the funds she embezzled as possible.
Truong My Lan’s family had told Reuters before the verdict was announced that she would appeal.
According to Sky News, the Viet Cong has launched a crackdown on corruption known as the “Melting Pot” that has resulted in hundreds of senior government officials and prominent business leaders facing prosecution or being forced to step down. For example, President Vo Van Sang, who had only been in office for one year, was implicated in a corruption case and was allowed to resign in March.
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