Vietnam Sentences Real Estate Tycoon to Death for Fraud
A Vietnamese real estate tycoon has been sentenced to death in the country's biggest ever financial fraud case.
On April 11, 67-year-old Truong My Lan was convicted of fraud totaling $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of Vietnam's 2022 GDP — and for illegally controlling a major bank that allowed loans resulting in $27 billion in losses, state media reported.
Death sentences are not uncommon in Vietnam, but they are rare for financial crimes — and for someone this well known.
Lan, born in 1956, started out helping to sell makeup with her mother, a Chinese businesswoman, in Ho Chi Minh city, according to the state-run Tien Phong.
She and her family established the Van Thinh Phat (VTP) company in 1992, when Vietnam changed its state-run economy to a more open market.
Over the years, VTP grew to become one of Vietnam's richest real estate firms. The company is linked to some of Ho Chi Minh city's most valuable downtown properties, including the five-star Sherwood Residence hotel where Lan lived until her 2022 arrest.
Lan was involved in the 2011 merger of the Saigon Joint Commercial Bank (SCB) with two other lenders. She is accused of using the bank as her cash cow, illegally controlling it between 2012 and 2022, and using thousands of "ghost companies" to give loans to herself and her allies, according to government documents.
The loans resulted in losses of $27 billion, state media VnExpress reported.
Lan was also accused of paying bribes to government officials and violating banking regulations.
The court said her actions "not only violate the property management rights of individuals but also pushed SCB into a state of special control, eroding people's trust in the leadership of the [Communist] party and state."
While Lan's arrest and the scale of her fraud shocked the nation, the case also raised questions about whether other banks had engaged in similar practices.
Her sentence comes in the middle of an anti-corruption drive, as Vietnam tries to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to move away from neighboring China.
