Vietnamese billionaire sentenced to death in country’s biggest ever fraud case

Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death by a court in southern Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday in the country’s largest-ever financial fraud case, state media Thanh Nien reported.

The 67-year-old chairman of real estate company Van Thinh Phat is accused of defrauding US$12.5 billion, equivalent to nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022, siphoning the funds through thousands of ghost companies and bribing government officials.

Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was one of the most high-profile incidents in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, which has continued to intensify since 2022. The so-called “furnace” movement has reached the highest levels of Vietnamese politics. Former President Vo Van Hiang resigned in March over his involvement in the election campaign.

The scale of the Danlan trial shocked the country. VTP is one of Vietnam’s richest real estate companies, with projects including luxury residential towers, offices, hotels and shopping malls. Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had made similar mistakes, undermining Vietnam’s economic prospects and putting foreign investors in a country that has been trying to position themselves as trying to divert. The ideal home for businesses that supply the occasion is stressful. Stay away from the Chinese chain.

Vietnam’s real estate sector has been particularly hard hit: an estimated 1,300 property companies have exited the market in 2023, and developers have been offering discounts and gold gifts to lure buyers, even as shophouse rents in Ho Chi Minh City fell by a third, according to State media reported that many parts of the city center remained deserted.

In November, Vietnam’s top politician and Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said the fight against corruption would “continue for a long time.”