Vietnam sentences real estate tycoon to death in $12.5 billion fraud case

Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh city in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever.

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

The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, or nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022 to siphon off these funds through thousands of ghost companies and by paying bribes to government officials.

Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022. The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after being implicated in the campaign.

But it’s the scale of Lan’s trial that has shocked the nation. VTP was among Vietnam’s richest real estate firms, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers.

Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vietnam-sentences-real-estate-tycoon-death-fraud-rcna147329

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