A Vietnam court sentenced real estate tycoon Truong My Lan to death for her role in a $12 billion fraud case, handing out one of the most severe punishments since the Communist Party began a crackdown on corruption.
Lan, 67, the chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, was arrested in 2022 and eventually faced charges including bribery of government officials and violation of bank lending rules. The main case against her was that she embezzled funds from Saigon Commercial Bank between February 2018 and October 2022.
That sum exceeds the market capitalization of most Vietnamese banks. Her arrest, initially on bond fraud charges, had led to panic among depositors of SCB, triggering a run on the bank. The events resulted in the State Bank of Vietnam taking control of the lender.
Capital punishment is not unusual in Communist Vietnam, where the death penalty is awarded for 22 offenses, including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes, such as graft and corruption, fraud and embezzlement.
Lan’s trial put the spotlight on Vietnam’s years-long anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
The push has touched all sectors of society and the highest levels of government and comes as the Southeast Asian nation emerges as a global supply chain hub for companies such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.
The case and others have roiled the nation’s bond, banking and property sectors. The last widely publicized death penalty awarded on corruption charge was in 2013 when two former executives of Vietnam National Shipping Lines were found guilty of embezzlement.
Lan’s company, also known as VTP, owns some of the most prestigious properties in the nation’s commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City. During the trial, Lan offered to hand in several of her family-owned assets to make up for the losses caused to Saigon Commercial Bank, according to VnExpress.
Lan has said she didn’t intentionally break the law or cause damage to the state and depositors, her lawyer, Giang Hong Thanh, said in March.
The five-week trial was conducted under tight security at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court. In all, 86 defendants were tried in the case, including Lan’s husband, Hong Kong businessman Eric Chu, and niece, VTP Chief Executive Officer Truong Hue Van.