Real estate tycoon in court: death penalty confirmed in Vietnam’s largest financial fraud case

The Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City has confirmed the death penalty against a real estate tycoon in Vietnam’s largest financial fraud case. Truong My Lan lost her appeal to have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment, the VNExpress newspaper reported, citing the court. The 68-year-old is said to have embezzled the equivalent of almost twelve billion euros – almost three percent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product in 2022.

However, prosecutors emphasized in the proceedings that the total damage caused by the fraud amounted to more than 25 billion euros. Lan’s case is one of the highest-profile trials in a broad anti-corruption campaign launched in 2016 by Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who died in July. As a result, thousands of government officials lost their jobs or were put on trial. Former presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong were forced to resign.

Convicted must pay back money

During the hearing, the judge said there was no basis for reducing Lan’s sentence because she had committed a particularly high number of crimes – including embezzlement and bribery – with serious consequences. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur was still trying to recover at least three quarters of the embezzled funds. Under Vietnamese law, her sentence in this case could be commuted to life imprisonment.

Between 2012 and 2022, Lan reportedly indirectly owned a 91.5 percent stake in Saigon Commercial Bank. She instructed bank officials to approve loans for thousands of shell companies before bribing officials and having the funds diverted in cash. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese lost their entire assets as a result of the fraud.

In the trial, which began on March 5, Lan pleaded not guilty to embezzlement and bribery charges. According to authorities, 2,700 people were called to testify and hundreds of lawyers were involved. She was sentenced to death in April.