Death penalty for property fraudster

A court in Vietnam handed the death sentence on Thursday to real estate tycoon Truong My Lan for her role in a 304-trillion-dong(R234 billion) financial fraud case, the country’s biggest on record, state media said.

Her trial, which began on March 5 and ended earlier than planned, was the result of a campaign against corruption that the leader of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, had for years pledged to stamp out.

Lan, the chairperson of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in the business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, state media said.

“We will keep fighting to see what we can do,” a family member said.

Before the verdict, he had said Lan would appeal against the sentence.

The Thanh Nien newspaper said 84 defendants in the case received sentences ranging from probation for three years to life imprisonment.

Lan and her accomplices were accused of siphoning off more than 304 trillion dong from Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which she effectively controlled through dozens of proxies, investigators said.

From early 2018 through October 2022, when the state bailed out SCB after a run on its deposits, Lan appropriated large sums by arranging unlawful loans to shell companies, investigators said.

Cape Times