A court in Vietnam on Thursday sentenced prominent real estate tycoon Truong My Lan to life imprisonment on financial fraud charges. This follows her earlier death sentence handed down in April in a separate case.
Lan, chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was convicted of charges including fraud, money laundering, and illegal cross-border transfers, according to reports from the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.
She is one of the prominent figures ensnared in Vietnam’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, commonly known as the “Blazing Furnace.” Lan’s companies were accused of illegally raising more than 30 trillion dong ($1.2 billion) through bond issuances, according to a police report issued prior to the trial.
Authorities also charged Lan with illegally transferring $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam and laundering 445 trillion dong ($18.1 billion).
While the court noted that Lan admitted to several offenses, she denied involvement in directing the illegal bond issuances, Tuoi Tre reported.
In April, Lan received a death sentence after being found guilty of embezzlement, bribery, and banking violations in connection with a financial fraud case involving 304 trillion dong, Vietnam’s largest on record. Her arrest in 2022 triggered a deposit run on Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), one of the country’s largest private banks, which was heavily connected to Lan’s business dealings.
Documents seen by media revealed that by April, the central bank had injected $24 billion into SCB as part of a massive rescue effort.
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Source: Vietnam Insider