Zhang Meilan denied the accusations and blamed subordinates.
Hanoi, Vietnam:
A top Vietnamese real estate tycoon and dozens of other co-defendants faced sentencing on Thursday in one of the country’s biggest fraud cases, and she could face the death penalty.
Truong My Lan, chairman of major developer Van Thinh Phat, has been accused of defrauding Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) of cash for more than a decade.
She and 85 others will face sentencing and sentencing in the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City after a five-week trial. The list of co-defendants includes former central bank governors, former government officials and former Standard Chartered Bank executives.
They face charges including bribery, abuse of power, misappropriation of funds and breach of banking laws.
Lang denied the accusations and blamed subordinates.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Lan, an unusually harsh punishment in such a case.
She and 85 others were arrested in a nationwide anti-corruption operation that has wiped out many officials and Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
In her final statement to the court last week, Lang appeared to indicate that she had suicidal thoughts.
“In despair, I thought about death,” she said, according to state media.
“I was angry because I was stupid enough to participate in this very competitive business environment – banking – that I knew so little about.”
Heavy police presence
After Lan was arrested in October 2022, hundreds of people began holding protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relative rarity in the one-party communist country.
On Wednesday, there was a heavy police presence outside the State Bank of Vietnam in Hanoi, where demonstrations had previously taken place.
Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal that has rocked the Southeast Asian nation.
Lan, whose husband is also a wealthy Hong Kong businessman on trial, is accused of setting up false loan applications to withdraw funds from Standard Chartered Bank, in which she owns 90%.
Police said those caught in the scam, all Standard Chartered bond holders, have been unable to withdraw their funds and have not received interest or principal since Lan was arrested.
Lan’s alleged asset misappropriation occurred between 2012 and 2022 and was worth about 3% of Vietnam’s 2022 GDP.
Prosecutors said they seized more than 1,000 of Lan’s properties during the trial.
Authorities also said Lan and some Standard Chartered bankers allegedly paid $5.2 million in bribes to state officials to cover up irregularities and poor financial health at the bank, the largest bribery case on record in Vietnam.
Bribery Woman – Do Thi Nhan, former head of the State Bank of Vietnam’s inspection team, said that during the trial, former SCB CEO Vo Tan Van handed over the cash in a Styrofoam box. give her.
Nhan rejected the boxes after realizing they contained money, but Van refused to take them back, state media reported.
Since 2021, Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign has involved more than 1,700 corruption cases and more than 4,400 people have been prosecuted.
Do Anh Dung, Vietnam’s top luxury real estate tycoon and head of Tan Hoang Minh Group, was sentenced last month to eight years in prison for defrauding thousands of investors in a $355 million bond scam.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
