Truong My Lan, a Vietnamese billionaire, has been sentenced to death for embezzling funds from one of Vietnam’s largest banks for 11 years.
The trial, held in Ho Chi Minh City, was one of Vietnam’s most significant, reflecting the magnitude of the bank fraud.
At the colonial-era courthouse, Truong My Lan, a 67-year-old property developer, received the death sentence, an uncommon punishment for a woman in Vietnam convicted of white-collar crime.
The verdict highlights the immense scale of the fraud, with Truong My Lan found guilty of obtaining $44 billion in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. She has been ordered to repay $27 billion, though it’s uncertain if this amount can be recovered. Some speculate that the death penalty aims to pressure her into returning the missing funds.
This high-profile case, usually kept under wraps by communist authorities, was extensively covered by the media. Approximately 2,700 individuals were called to testify, with 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers involved. The evidence, stored in 104 boxes weighing six tonnes, implicated 85 defendants, including Truong My Lan, who denied the charges.
David Brown, a former US State Department official familiar with Vietnam, noted the unprecedented nature of the trial, stating that such a spectacle had not been witnessed in the communist era.