Vietnam: Court Upholds Business Tycoon's Death Penalty Over $12 Billion Bank Fraud (X image @Naija_PR)
Hanoi, Vietnam: A court in Vietnamese has rejected, Truong My Lan’s – a real estate tycoon’s appeal – upholding the death sentence for the embezzlement of $12bn. The court in Ho Chi Minh City ruled against Lan’s appeal in the case, which has raised concerns over the impact on the country’s economy due to the huge sums involved.
The High People’s Court determined that there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, reported local media. At the same time, the court also said that the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment should she repay three-quarters of the money.
“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution said at the appeal hearing, according to VietnamNet, a state-run online newspaper.
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“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy”, it added.
Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record.
She is convicted of orchestrating financial fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, equalling nearly 3 percent of the country’s 2022 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and for illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).
Reportedly, she illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between the year 2012 to 2022 siphoning the fund through thousands of ghost companies. She also bribed government officials in the process. Her arrest in 2022 was the most high-profile arrest during the anti-corruption drive in Vietnam which intensified after 2022. The campaign was also called as ‘Burning Furnace, and it has reached the highest tiers of Vietnamese politics. The country’s former President Vo Van Thuong stepped down from the position after being implicated in the anti-corruption campaign.
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Her arrest in 2022 prompted a run on SCB, one of the country’s largest private banks. About 36,000 people have been identified as victims of the fraud, which shocked the communist nation and prompted rare protests.
State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying that she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled”. However, prosecutors said that was insufficient. The 68-year-old still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.
