Court ordered Lan, 67, to pay almost all damages
Ho Chi Minh City:
One of Vietnam’s top real estate tycoons was sentenced to death on Thursday in one of the largest corruption cases in history, with losses estimated at $27 billion.
A panel of three handpicked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments of Truong My Lan, chairman of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was sentenced to more than a decade of deprivation from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB). Scam cash.
“The defendants’ actions… undermined people’s trust in the leadership of the (communist) party and the state,” read the verdict at the trial in the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.
After a five-week trial, 85 other people were also sentenced on charges including bribery, abuse of power, misappropriation of funds and violations of banking laws. Four of them were sentenced to life imprisonment, while the others received suspended sentences ranging from 20 to three years.
Lan’s husband, Hong Kong billionaire Chu Lak-kee, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Lan embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said on Thursday that the total losses from the scam have now reached $27 billion, equivalent to 6% of the country’s 2023 GDP.
The court ordered Lan, 67, to pay nearly all of the damages.
Although the country is the world’s leading executioner, the death sentence is an unusually harsh punishment in such cases, according to Amnesty International.
Lan and others are part of a national anti-corruption drive that has wiped out many officials and Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
In her final remarks in court last week, she appeared to indicate that she was having 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.”
protest
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.
Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal that has rocked the Southeast Asian nation.
Among them was 67-year-old Hanoi resident Nga, who told AFP on Thursday that she had hoped Lan would be sentenced to life in prison so she could live to fully witness the pain her actions caused ordinary people.
“A lot of people have worked hard to put their money in banks, but now she’s been sentenced to death and this is what’s happened to her,” said Nga, who used a pseudonym to protect her identity.
“She couldn’t see the suffering of the people.”
Nga has yet to recoup her $120,000 investment in SCB.
Lan is accused of setting up false loan applications to withdraw funds from Standard Chartered Bank, in which she owns 90% of the shares.
The victims of the scam, all Standard Chartered bond holders, have been unable to withdraw their funds and have not received interest or principal since Lan’s arrest, police said.
Prosecutors said they seized more than 1,000 properties belonging to her during the trial.
Authorities also said Lan and some Standard Chartered bankers allegedly gave $5.2 million to state officials to cover up irregularities and poor financial health at the bank, in Vietnam’s largest recorded bribery case.
Do Thi Nhan, the former head of the inspection team of the State Bank of Vietnam, was sentenced to life imprisonment for taking bribes. She said the former SCB CEO handed her millions of dollars in Styrofoam boxes during the trial.
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.)
