fraud

A PROMINENT property company owner in Vietnam was sentenced to death on Thursday in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with losses estimated at US$27 billion.

A panel of three selected jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments of Truong My Lan, chairman of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of defrauding money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade.

“The defendant’s actions… eroded public trust in the leadership of the (Communist) Party and the state,” said the verdict at the trial in the southern business city of Ho Chi Minh City.

After a five-week trial, 85 other people were also convicted on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to misappropriation and violations of banking laws.

Four people were sentenced to life in prison, while the others received prison sentences ranging from 20 years to three years suspended.

Lan’s husband, Hong Kong billionaire Eric Chu Nap Kee, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

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Lan misappropriated US$12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday the total losses caused by the fraud now reached US$27 billion, or the equivalent of 6% of the country’s GDP in 2023.

The court ordered Lan, 67, to pay almost the entire amount of the loss as compensation.

The death penalty is an unusual punishment in a case like this, even though the country is the world’s leading executioner, according to Amnesty International.

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Lan and the others were arrested as part of a nationwide corruption crackdown that has implicated scores of officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.

He apparently said in his final statement to the court last week that he had suicidal thoughts.

“In my despair, I thought regarding death,” he said, according to state media.

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“I was furious that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment — the banking sector — regarding which I had little knowledge.”

Hundreds of people protested in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare event in the one-party communist state, following Lan’s arrest in October 2022.

Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the Southeast Asian country.

Among them was Nga, a 67-year-old Hanoi resident who told AFP, hoped for a life sentence for Lan so he might live to fully witness the pain his actions caused ordinary people.

“Many people worked hard to save money in the bank, but now he received a death sentence and that’s it for him,” said Nga, using a pseudonym to protect his identity.

“That’s all he might see of people’s suffering.”

Nga has so far not been able to take back the US$120,000 he invested with SCB.

Lan was accused of building a fake loan application to withdraw money from SCB, in which he owned a 90% stake.

Police said the victims of the scheme were all SCB bondholders who were unable to withdraw their money and had received no interest or principal payments since Lan’s arrest.

Prosecutors said during the trial that they had confiscated more than 1,000 properties owned by him.

Authorities also said the US$5.2 million that Lan and several SCB bankers allegedly gave to state officials to hide the bank’s abuses and dire financial situation was the largest bribe ever recorded in Vietnam.

Do Thi Nhan, former head of the inspection team of the State Bank of Vietnam, was sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes. He said during the trial that millions of dollars were given to him in Styrofoam boxes by the former CEO of SCB.

More than 4,400 people have been indicted during Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, covering more than 1,700 bribery cases, since 2021.

Vietnam’s top luxury property entrepreneur — Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group — was sentenced to eight years in prison last month following being found guilty of defrauding thousands of investors in a US$355 million bond scheme. (AFP/Z-3)