Female property developer is sentenced to DEATH for $12.5billion financial fraud – one of the biggest corruption cases in history – in Vietnam

A real estate magnate has been sentenced to death in Vietnam in one of the biggest financial fraud cases in the country’s history, with damages estimated at $27 billion.

Truong My Lan, chairman of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was charged with fraud worth $12.5 billion – nearly 3 percent of the country’s 2022 GDP.

She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 to siphon these funds through thousands of ghost companies and pay bribes to government officials.

More than a dozen police cars and vans carrying the defendants – a list of former central bankers, ex-government officials and former SCB executives – arrived at the colonial-era courthouse in the early morning.

After a five-week trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Lan and 85 others faced verdicts and convictions on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to usurpation and banking law violations.

Lan was found to have embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday that the total damages caused by the scam now amount to $27 billion – a figure equivalent to six percent of the country’s GDP in 2023. The 67- year-old has denied the allegations and blamed her subordinates.

Lan was convicted of embezzling $12.5 billion. Prosecutors said Thursday that the total damages caused by the scam now amount to $27 billion

After a five-week trial in business center Ho Chi Minh City, Lan and 85 others face verdicts and sentences on Thursday

The businesswoman is accused of defrauding Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) of money for 10 years

Prosecutors have called for Lan to face the death penalty, an unusually harsh punishment in such a case

Most of the suspects sat with their heads bowed in the courtroom Thursday, although Lan could be seen fidgeting and looking up from the front row.

Prosecutors are calling for Lan to face the death penalty, which is an unusually harsh punishment in such a case.

Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was one of the most high-profile in an ongoing fight against corruption in Vietnam, which has intensified since 2022.

The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign has hit the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after his involvement in the campaign.

But it is the scale of Lan’s trial that has shocked the nation. VTP was among Vietnam’s wealthiest real estate companies, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers.

She and the others were arrested as part of a national crackdown on corruption that has affected scores of officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.

Lan appeared to say in his final comments to the court last week that she was having suicidal thoughts.

“In my despair I thought about death,” she said, according to state media.

‘I’m so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very intense business environment – ​​the banking sector – that I have little knowledge of.’

Do Thi Nhan, the former head of the State Bank of Vietnam inspection team, told the court that she was offered a bribe

Lan denied the accusations and blamed her subordinates. In the photo: some defendants during the trial

Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or companies had made similar mistakes, dampening Vietnam’s economic prospects and unnerving foreign investors at a time when Vietnam is trying to position itself as the ideal home base for companies trying to adapt their offerings. chains away from China.

Hundreds of people began organizing protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare occurrence in the communist one-party state, after Lan’s arrest in October 2022.

Police have identified about 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the Southeast Asian country.

Lan, who is married to a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who is also on trial, is accused of setting up fake loan applications to withdraw money from SCB, in which she owned a 90 percent stake.

The real estate mogul could face the death penalty if convicted on charges she siphoned off $12.5 billion

Police say the victims of the scam are all SCB bondholders who have been unable to withdraw their money and have not received interest or principal payments since Lan’s arrest.

Prosecutors said they seized more than a thousand of Lan’s belongings during the trial.

Authorities have also said that $5.2 million allegedly given by Lan and some SCB bankers to state officials to cover up the bank’s violations and that its poor financial situation was the largest bribery ever committed in Vietnam.

The woman who was offered the bribe – Do Thi Nhan, the former head of the State Bank of Vietnam inspection team – said that during the trial, the money was handed to her in Styrofoam boxes by former SCB CEO Vo Tan Van.

A leading Vietnamese luxury real estate tycoon – Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group – was sentenced last month to eight years in prison

After Nhan realized there was money inside, he refused the boxes, but Van refused to take them back, state media reported.

Since 2021, more than 4,400 people have been charged in Vietnam’s anti-corruption crackdown, in more than 1,700 corruption cases.

A leading Vietnamese luxury real estate tycoon – Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group – was sentenced to eight years in prison last month after being found guilty of defrauding thousands of investors in a $355 million bond scam.

Vietnam’s real estate sector has been particularly hard hit by the crackdown.

An estimated 1,300 real estate companies have withdrawn from the market by 2023, property developers have offered discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite retail rental prices in Ho Chi Minh City falling by a third, many are standing in the city center still empty, according to state media.

In November, Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s top politician, said the fight against corruption would “continue in the long term.”