- Truong My Lan, 67, sentenced to death for corruption incidents
A top Vietnamese real estate tycoon has been sentenced to death after one of the biggest corruption cases in history.
Truong My Lan, chairman of major developer Van Thinh Phat, has been accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, or nearly 3% of the country’s GDP in 2022.
She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 to funnel funds through thousands of shadow companies and by paying bribes to government officials.
But who exactly is Truong My Lan and how were his corrupt actions discovered?
Read below everything you need to know about the person who was sentenced to death following the world’s most high-profile corruption cases.
Truong My Lan was convicted of embezzling $12.5 billion. Prosecutors said Thursday that total damages from the scam now stand at $27 billion.
Who is Truong My Lan?
Born in Shantou, China’s Guangdong province, Truong My Lan, 67, has long been a controversial name for her business exploits.
She entered the business world as a market stall vendor, selling cosmetics with her mother, but began buying land and property after the Vietnamese Communist Party ushered in a period of economic reform, known under the name Doi Moi, in 1986.
In the 1990s, it owned a large number of different hotels and restaurants.
A prominent figure in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011, she was authorized to organize the merger of three small, cash-strapped banks to form Saigon Commercial Bank.
Founder of Van Thinh Phat Group, a real estate development group, she is married to Eric Chu Nap Kee, a businessman in the real estate sector in Hong Kong.
The trial was part of the “Burning Furnaces” anti-corruption campaign, created by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in 2016.
Trong previously said that “a country without discipline would be chaotic and unstable…we need to balance democracy and law and order.”
Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after becoming involved in the campaign.
Her husband and niece, Truong Hue Van, 34, CEO of a property management company, were also summoned to the trial where she was sentenced to death.
Lan (center), chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings, sits during her trial at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court
Lan denied the accusations and blamed his subordinates. Pictured: Some of the defendants at the trial
She was found guilty of taking out $44 billion (£35 billion) in loans from Saigon Commercial Bank, $27 billion of which prosecutors say may never be recovered.
Prosecutors said she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4 billion (£2.3 billion) in cash from the bank, and store it in her -sol, over a three-year period starting in February 2019.
Lan’s embezzlement of $12.5 billion is equivalent to around 3% of Vietnam’s total GDP for 2023.
Lam will appeal the verdict, a family member told reporters before its publication.
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