A prominent Vietnamese real estate tycoon was found guilty Thursday of fraudulently acquiring assets worth billions of dollars, amid a major government crackdown on corruption.
Truong My Lan was found guilty in April at the same court in Ho Chi Minh City of defrauding the country of a total of $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of the country’s gross domestic product, in a separate case. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection. .
Because of the breadth of the allegations against her, the trial was divided into two parts. Thursday’s verdict could carry up to life in prison, further complicating Lan’s legal situation as he awaits the outcome of an appeal of his death sentence.
Over the past few decades, Vietnam has handed out more than 2,000 death sentences and executed more than 400 people. The death penalty can be imposed for 14 different crimes, but it primarily applies only to murder and drug trafficking cases.
Lan, chairman of real estate developer Van Tinh Phat, told the judges in his final statement last week, according to a report in online newspaper VNExpress. I consider this to be my destiny and a career coincidence.
“I will never forget that my actions affected tens of thousands of families.”
Thirty-three other people were tried as co-defendants in the case, but further details about their verdicts were not immediately released. Ms Lunn’s sentence is expected to be announced later today.
In addition to obtaining property by fraudulent means, Lan was also found guilty of money laundering and illegal cross-border transfers, according to state media reports.
The charges against her include illegally issuing corporate bonds through four companies to raise $1.2 billion from approximately 36,000 investors. Additionally, she was found guilty of embezzling $18 billion obtained through fraud and using her company to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion within and outside Vietnam between 2012 and 2022. .
It remains unclear whether Ms. Lunn will appeal the sentence, and no date has been set for her appeal of the death penalty conviction.
At her conviction in April, state media reported that she was found to have masterminded financial fraud totaling £12.5bn by illegally managing major banks, resulting in losses of £27bn.
Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was one of the most notable incidents in Vietnam’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has intensified since 2022.
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