Life sentence for real estate tycoon in Vietnam’s biggest-ever fraud case

• Truong My Lan, the 67-year-old chairwoman of real estate company Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty of money laundering to the value of nearly US$18 billion (RM77.52 billion), fraudulently obtaining property worth US$1.2 billion and illegal international money transfers of US$4.5 billion.

HANOI (Oct 17): Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was handed a life sentence on Thursday in the second trial related to country’s largest-ever financial fraud case, reported German news agency dpa quoting state media.

Lan, the 67-year-old chairwoman of real estate company Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty of money laundering to the value of nearly US$18 billion (RM77.52 billion), fraudulently obtaining property worth US$1.2 billion and illegal international money transfers of US$4.5 billion.

She had already been sentenced to death in April this year in a first trial on charges of embezzlement, violating banking regulations and bribery. 

She was accused of running a huge financial scam that caused losses to a state bank of some 677 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$27 billion) — more than 6% of the country’s 2022 GDP.

She has appealed against her death sentence but the court has not set a date yet for the hearing.

Between 2012 and 2022, Lan indirectly owned a 91.5% stake in Saigon Commercial Bank. She ordered bank executives to approve loans to thousands of shell companies, before bribing officials and siphoning off the funds as cash.

Lan’s accomplices approved around 2,500 loans, according to state media reports.

The scandal also saw the largest-ever reported bribe for a government official, with a banking inspector paid US$5.2 million to stay silent.

Lan’s case is part of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that has seen hundreds of government officials lose their jobs or face trial, and former presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong resign from office.

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