Vietnam sentences real estate tycoon Truong My Lan to death in largest ever fraud case: AP explains

A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced to death Thursday in the country’s biggest ever financial fraud case, a shocking development in an intensifying anti corruption drive in the Southeast Asian nation. Chuang Milan, a high profile businesswoman who chaired A sprawling real estate company was arrested in 2022. The 67 year old was formally charged, a fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of Vietnam’s 2022 GDP. A key player in Vietnam’s financial world, she orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank with two other lenders. Found that she then used this to illegally control over 90% of the bank, a charge she denies, and approved thousands of loans to ghost companies that eventually found their way back to her. The court added that she then bribed officials to cover her tracks. Her case is now amongst the most high profile and ongoing corruption drive in Vietnam, known as the blazing furnace that has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. Last month, the former president resigned after being implicated in the campaign. Analysts say that the case has dampened Vietnam’s economic outlook and made foreign investors jittery.