Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules by a court sitting in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday, April 11.<\/p>\n
Lan had been accused of looting Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which she controlled through dozens of proxies, by arranging unlawful loans to shell companies between 2012 and 2022.<\/p>\n
The alleged value of the assets Lan appropriated was approximately 3 percent of Vietnam\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, making the heist one of the largest in the country\u2019s history. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors claim that 1,000 properties owned by the accused have been seized.<\/p>\n
The tycoon had denied any wrongdoing and instead blamed subordinates for the crimes. She stated that she had contemplated suicide due to the charges leveled against her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my desperation, I thought of death,\u201d Lan told the court in her final submissions last week, adding, \u201cI am so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment \u2013 the banking sector \u2013 which I have little knowledge of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court attributed the severity of the sentence to the seriousness of the charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer actions not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organizations but also push SCB into a state of special control; eroding people\u2019s trust in the leadership of the Party and State,\u201d the judgment read in part.<\/p>\n
Lan\u2019s husband, Hong Kong investor Eric Chu Nap-Kee, was one of the 86 suspects implicated in the trial. He was accused of setting up fake loan applications to withdraw money from the Saigon bank, in which Lan owned a 90 percent stake. Lan\u2019s niece Truong Hue Van, who was the CEO of Van Thinh Phat, was also implicated.<\/p>\n
Reports in the local media indicate that 84 defendants in the case received sentences ranging from probation for three years to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The trial marked the highest level of drama yet in the “Blazing Furnaces” anti-corruption effort led by Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong.<\/p>\n
Trong launched the fierce campaign on the belief that popular anger over untamed corruption poses an existential threat to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. <\/p>\n
Two presidents and two deputy prime ministers have been forced to resign, and hundreds of officials punished since the campaign began in earnest in 2016. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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