Vietnam death row tycoon jailed for life in separate trial

HO CHI MINH CITY: A Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death for fraud totalling US$27 billion was jailed for life on Thursday (Oct 17) in a related trial on money laundering charges, state media said.
Property developer Truong My Lan was found guilty in April of swindling cash from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) – which prosecutors said she controlled – and sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history.
Tens of thousands of people who had invested their savings in the bank lost money, shocking the communist nation and prompting rare protests from the victims.
On Thursday, a panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges determined that Lan was guilty of money laundering and illegal cross-border trafficking of cash, according to state-controlled news site VNExpress.
She was also found guilty of bond fraud, the site reported.
“The court determined that Truong My Lan was the mastermind, committed the crime with sophisticated methods, many times, causing especially serious consequences … so she was sentenced to life in prison for three crimes,” VNExpress said.
Thirty-three other defendants were also sentenced at the court in Ho Chi Minh City, and given terms ranging from two to 23 years in prison.
Among them was Lan’s husband, who was jailed for two years for money laundering, and her niece, who was handed a five-year prison term for fraudulent appropriation of property.
Nguyen Thi Huong, who lost US$20,000 of savings to the fraud said she felt “resentment and loss of trust in the party and government”.
“Victims across the country are deeply outraged,” she told AFP.
In her final words before court last week, Lan had begged for leniency, admitting she had made mistakes.
Earlier in the trial she had pleaded for the return of two albino crocodile Hermes bags worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, saying she wanted to give them to her children and grandchildren as a keepsake.
The court refused.
Around 36,000 people who bought bonds issued by SCB have been identified as victims of the fraud.
Lan was ordered to compensate all the victims, according to state media, but no detail was given on how or when it would happen.
Huong told AFP she wanted to die after losing US$20,000, her entire savings, through investing in a bond in 2022.
“When I learned that I had lost all the money I had deposited at SCB Bank, I felt like I was losing my mind,” said Huong, 33.
She developed insomnia, her health deteriorated from stress and she no longer had money to send her children to extra classes, making them fall behind their peers, she said.
“I sat by my father’s grave, and wished he would take me with him in death,” Huong said.
State media reported earlier that Lan and her associates stole around US$18 billion by taking assets from SCB between early 2018 and October 2022. Lan effectively owned a 90 per cent stake in the bank.
Lan, chair of major real estate developer Van Thinh Phat, ordered her accomplices to withdraw cash and transfer it out of SCB’s system, state media said.
She then hid the origins of the money and used it to settle debts between companies or transferred the money abroad for fake contracts.
Dozens of victims in the case held protests in central Hanoi as her latest trial started, demanding authorities help them get their money back.
Lan had apologised to the victims in court, according to state media, and said she was “not a bad person”.
She was given the death penalty in April after being found guilty of embezzling US$12.5 billion – a verdict she is appealing, though no date has yet been announced for it.
Prosecutors said the total damages caused amounted to US$27 billion – a figure equivalent to about six per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product in 2023.