HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The demise sentence for actual property tycoon Truong My Lan was upheld Tuesday in Vietnam’s largest fraud case, the size of which had raised issues concerning the nation’s economic system.
She had been convicted in April of embezzlement and bribery over the fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, almost 3% of Vietnam’s 2022 GDP. As chairperson of the Van Thinh Phat actual property agency, Lan illegally managed Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that price the financial institution $27 billion in losses.
The courtroom in Ho Chi Minh rejected her attraction in opposition to the conviction whereas including that her demise sentence might be commuted to life if she reimburses three-fourth of the losses, figuring out to round $11 billion, state media reported.
Her legal professionals argued that she had repaid the cash however the courtroom disagreed since there have been authorized points with a few of the seized properties and prosecuting businesses couldn’t assess their worth, VN Express reported.
Lan’s legal professionals additionally famous a number of mitigating circumstances — she had admitted guilt, confirmed regret and had paid again a part of the quantity.
“I really feel pained as a result of waste of nationwide assets,” she mentioned final week, state media reported.
But the courtroom mentioned her violations had negatively impacted banking, prompted public dysfunction and eroded individuals’s belief, VN Express mentioned.
Under Vietnamese regulation, demise sentences aren’t instantly carried out and there may be an prolonged authorized course of, mentioned Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow within the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. He added that Lan would search one other evaluation of the case or a presidential pardon to scale back her sentence.
“Moreover, if she repays not less than three-quarters of the misappropriated funds, the courtroom might take into account commuting her sentence to life imprisonment,” he mentioned.
Her arrest was among the many most high-profile in an anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that intensified after 2022. The Blazing Furnace marketing campaign touched the very best echelons of Vietnamese politics. But the size of her fraud shocked the nation with analysts elevating questions on whether or not different banks or companies had equally erred.
This dampened Vietnam’s financial outlook and made international traders jittery at a time when Vietnam has been attempting to place itself as a house for companies pivoting their provide chains away from China.
Lan, 67, and her household had arrange the Van Thing Phat firm in 1992 after Vietnam shed its state-run economic system in favor of a extra market-oriented method open to foreigners. The firm grew into certainly one of Vietnam’s richest actual property corporations, with luxurious residential buildings, workplaces, motels and buying facilities.
This made her a key participant within the nation’s monetary trade. She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB financial institution with two different lenders in coordination with Vietnam’s central financial institution. The courtroom mentioned that she used this to faucet SCB for money and, in accordance with authorities paperwork, owned greater than 90% of the financial institution whereas approving hundreds of loans to “ghost firms.”
These loans, in accordance with state media, discovered their option to her and she or he bribed officers to cowl her tracks.
The scale of the crime meant the case was cut up into two trials, and Lan was sentenced to a different life sentence in October. At that trial, she was accused of elevating $1.2 billion from almost 36,000 traders by issuing bonds illegally by way of 4 firms, state media reported.
She was additionally discovered responsible of siphoning off $18 billion obtained by way of fraud and for utilizing firms managed by her to illegally switch greater than $4.5 billion out and in of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.
Vietnam has handed down greater than 2,000 demise sentences up to now decade and executed greater than 400 prisoners. It is a attainable sentence for 14 totally different crimes however is usually utilized for instances of homicide and drug trafficking.
