Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was slapped with the death sentence by a court in Vietnam on Thursday for her role in a 304-trillion-dong ($12.5-billion) financial fraud, the country’s biggest on record.
The ruling comes two years after Lan, the chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat, was formally charged with the multi-billion dollar fraud, which is reported to be close to 3% of the country’s overall revenue in 2022, VnExpress reported.
It is understood that the 67-year-old illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022, allowing 2,500 loans that resulted in the bank incurring a staggering $27 billion in losses.
Despite this being a first-time offence for Lan, the court attributed its harsh verdict to the gravity of the case. It noted that she was at the helm of an orchestrated and sophisticated criminal enterprise with grave consequences and no chance of money being retrieved, as per VnExpress.
Her actions, “not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organizations but also push SCB (Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank) into a state of special control; eroding people’s trust in the leadership of the Party and State,” a quote from judgement said.
