HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was upheld Tuesday in Vietnam’s largest fraud case, the scale of which had raised concerns about the country’s economy.
She had been convicted in April of embezzlement and bribery over the fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of Vietnam’s 2022 GDP. As chairperson of the Van Thinh Phat real estate firm, Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that cost the bank $27 billion in losses.
The court in Ho Chi Minh rejected her appeal against the conviction while adding that her death sentence could be commuted to life if she reimburses three-fourth of the losses, VN Express reported. The court said her violations had negatively impacted banking, caused public disorder and eroded people’s trust, the state media outlet said.
Her arrest was among the most high-profile in an anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that intensified after 2022. The Blazing Furnace campaign touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. But the scale of her fraud shocked the nation with analysts raising questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred.
This dampened Vietnam’s economic outlook and 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.
