Vietnam court upholds tycoon’s death sentence for $12bn bank fraud

A Vietnamese court has rejected a real estate tycoon’s appeal, upholding the death sentence handed down for the embezzlement of $12bn.

The court in Ho Chi Minh City ruled against Truong My Lan’s appeal in the case, which has raised concerns over the impact on the country’s economy due to the huge sums involved.

The High People’s Court determined there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, local media reported. However, it also said that the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment should she repay three-quarters of the money.

“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution said at the appeal hearing, according to state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.

“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.”

Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record.

She is convicted of orchestrating financial fraud amounting to $12bn, equalling nearly 3 percent of the country’s 2022 gross domestic product (GDP), and for illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).

Her arrest in 2022 prompted a run on SCB, one of the country’s largest private banks. About 36,000 people have been identified as victims of the fraud, which shocked the communist nation and prompted rare protests.

State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled”, but prosecutors said that was insufficient.

Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.

The 68-year-old is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy anticorruption campaign known as “Blazing Furnace”, which has intensified since 2022, netting a number of business executives, government officials and members of the police and armed forces.