Tycoon sentenced to death over $21b bank fraud
She began her career as a market trader selling cosmetics and went on to become one of the richest businesswomen in Vietnam. But yesterday Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for one of the biggest frauds on record.
Lan, who is in her late 60s, was convicted of corruption and embezzling 304 trillion dong (NZ$21 billion) from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which she controlled illegally through a network of “ghost” companies.
The trial is the climax of a government anti-corruption campaign known as Blazing Furnaces, driven by Nguyen Phu Trong, head of the Communist Party. Two deputy prime ministers and two presidents have been brought down, the most recent being Vo Van Thuong who resigned last month over “violations”, assumed to be corruption.
“The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” the panel of three jurors and two judges said in the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City.
Prosecutors have asked for heavy sentences for 85 other defendants in the case, including Lan’s husband and niece. According to the police, about 42,000 people have lost money, and total losses amount to NZ$44.9b – or 6% of the country’s gross domestic product last year.
Lan’s property firm, Van
Thinh Phat, one of the biggest in Vietnam, built and managed luxury homes, offices, hotels and shopping malls. The country’s stockmarket fell when she was arrested in 2022.
In 2011, Lan oversaw the merger of three small, struggling banks to form Saigon Commercial Bank. Individuals in Vietnam are barred from owning more than 5% of shares in any one bank but by using small companies that existed only on paper, Lan controlled at least 90% of SCB.
She insisted during her trial that she was guilty of no more than incompetence. “It is probably because I joined the banking industry without experience in it,” she told the court.
Lan and her accomplices are accused of securing 2500 loans between 2012 and 2022, worth NZ$67b. She asked to be allowed to continue the job of paying back the assets lost by the bank depositors. Prosecutors are pressing for at least 10 years in prison for Eric Chu, her husband and a Hong Kong businessman, and 17 years for her niece, Truong Hue Van. Lan’s family said before the verdict that she would appeal against any conviction. Vietnam is secretive about its use of the death penalty, usually by lethal injection.