Who Is Truong My Lan? Vietnamese Billionaire Sentenced To Death In Country’s Biggest Fraud Case

who is truong my lan? vietnamese billionaire sentenced to death in country’s biggest fraud case

Hanoi: Truong My Lan, a property tycoon in Vietnam, is facing the death penalty in a trial conducted recently. She, alongside 85 others, has been accused of embezzling $12.5 billion in total. Other charges they face include bribery, abuse of power, appropriation and banking law violations.

Lan is the chair of a major developer Van Thinh Phat and has been accused of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank over a period of ten years. The total damage caused by the scam is around $27 billion, which is equivalent to 6 percent of the country’s 2023 GDP.

The very large group of accused individuals was tried in Ho Chi Minh City, following a trial which lasted five weeks. The group includes former central bankers, ex-government officials and previous SCB executives.

Lan has denied the charges and blamed her subordinates for the embezzlement. The death sentence she received is a rare and unusual punishment for such a case.

The group of 86 people was arrested as a part of a national crackdown against corruption, which includes charges against various officials and business elites in the south east Asian country.

“In my desperation, I thought of death,” she said to the court, suggesting that she had thoughts of suicide. “I am so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment, the banking sector, which I have little knowledge of,” she added.

Hundreds of people took part in protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City after Lan’s arrest in October 2022.

According to AFP, there was heavy police presence outside the State Bank of Vietnam in Hanoi on Wednesday. The Vietnamese police have identified around 42,000 victims of this scandal which swindled billions.

Lan is reportedly married to a wealthy Hong Kong billionaire, who has been accused of setting up fake loan applications to withdraw money from SCB, in which she owned a 90 percent stake. While talking of the victims of the scam, the police said those affected are SCB bondholders who cannot withdraw their money and have not received interest or principal payments since the arrest.

The estimated value of appropriation alleged to have been done by Lan is around 3% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022. Over a 1000 properties belonging to Lan have been seized.

The charges also included the largest bribe recorded in the history of the country. It is alleged that around $5.2 million was given by SSB bakers and Lan to state officials to conceal the banks violations and finances.

The bribe was offered to the former head of the State Bank of Vietnam inspection team Do Thi Nhan, who claimed that the cash was handed to her in Styrofoam boxes by the former CEO of SCB Vo Tan Van. She refused the boxes upon seeing the contents. Van, however, reportedly did not take them back.

In another recent case, Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group, was sentenced to eight years in prison last month after being found guilty of fraud, cheating thousands of investors in a $355 million bond scam.