Vietnam sentences businesswoman to Life in prison in mega-fraud trial

Truong My Lan, 68, is already on death row for masterminding the embezzlement of $26.8 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank.

Businesswoman Truong My Lan was sentenced to life in prison yesterday in relation to a multi-billion-dollar fraud for which she already faces the death penalty, Vietnamese media reported.

In a hearing, judges at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court found the 68-year-old guilty of fraud, money laundering, and cross-border currency trafficking, VnExpress reported.

As head of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat (VTP), Lan is accused of using “thousands of ghost companies” to embezzle 677 trillion dong ($26.8 billion) from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), in collusion with family members and scores of accomplices.

Judges yesterday found her guilty of illegally raising over 30 trillion dong ($1.2 billion) by issuing bonds to investors, and of laundering money worth 445 trillion dong ($17.6 billion), which she embezzled from SCB and from defrauding bond investors. She and her accomplices were also convicted of illegally sending and receiving a total of $4.5 billion from overseas.

The charged bring to an end the second trial related to the gargantuan fraud. In April, Lan was sentenced to death on multiple counts of bribery, violating banking regulations, and embezzlement. The court also ordered her to pay 673.8 trillion dong ($26.7 billion) in compensation to SCB, in which she holds a 91 percent stake.

In handing down the death sentence, the court stated that Lan’s actions “not only violate the property management rights of individuals but also pushed SCB into a state of special control, eroding people’s trust in the leadership of the party and state.”

During her second trial, RFA reported, the court heard that Lan the chairwoman told senior staff at Van Thinh Phat, SCB, and the company Tan Viet Securities to issue more than 300 million bonds, which allowed her to appropriate 30 trillion dong from nearly 36,000 investors.

Lan denied that she had masterminded the bond issuances and said that she had no intention of defrauding investors. She promised to use all her assets for the compensation of the victims. On the last day of the trial on October 11, Lan read out a statement in which she appealed for clemency from the judges and prosecutors.

“Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” she said. “For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions have affected tens of thousands of families.”

In the second trial, all other 33 co-defendants were found guilty of various charges and received sentences ranging from two to 23 years in prison. These included Chu Nap Kee, Lan’s husband and the chairman of property developer Times Square Vietnam, who was sentenced to two years imprisonment for money laundering. This came on top of the nine-year sentence that he received in the first trial, for abetting Lan’s embezzlement of funds from SCB.

Lan has appealed the death sentence in the first case, although a date for the hearing has not been announced. She will presumably do the same in the charges handed down yesterday. However, given the high profile of the case, and the Communist Party of Vietnam’s political imperative of eradicating corruption, the chance of overturning the verdict or reducing the sentence remains slim. It is clear from the wide latitude that the media has been granted to report on the trial that the authorities intend make an example of Lan.

By Sebastian Strangio – The diplomat – October 18, 2024