HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced Thursday to life in prison after being found guilty of fraudulently acquiring billions of dollars worth of real estate in a case at the center of a government crackdown on corruption. was sentenced.
Truong My Lan was previously found guilty in a separate case in the same Ho Chi Minh City court in April of fraud worth $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), and was sentenced to death by lethal injection. has been sentenced.
Due to the number of charges against her, the trial was split into two parts, and Thursday’s verdict deepens Ms. Lang’s legal problems as she awaits an appeal against her death sentence.
Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences and executed more than 400 prisoners in the past decade. This sentence can be imposed for 14 different crimes, but is usually only applied in cases of murder and drug trafficking.
“Standing here today is too high a price for me to pay. I consider this to be my destiny and a career coincidence,” said the CEO of real estate developer Van Tinh Phat. VN Express Online reported what chairman Lan told the judge in his final statement last week.
“I will never forget that my actions affected tens of thousands of families.”
Nguyen Hieu, a school teacher whose $36,000 life savings are tied to illegal bonds issued by Lan’s company, said a life sentence was appropriate.
“She deserves to be punished,” he said, adding that he hoped the trial court’s death sentence would be commuted to give Ran a chance to make amends for her victims.
The other 33 co-defendants were all found guilty on various charges and received prison sentences ranging from two to 23 years. Among them was Ms Lan’s husband, Chew Nap Kee, who was sentenced to two years in prison for money laundering.
In addition to obtaining property by fraud, Lan was also found guilty of money laundering and illegal cross-border transfers, according to state media.
She is accused of illegally issuing bonds through four companies and raising $1.2 billion from about 36,000 investors, according to state media reports.
She was also charged with siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and using companies she controlled to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion into and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022. convicted.
It was not immediately clear whether Lang would appeal the sentence, and no date has yet been set for the appeal of the death penalty conviction.
According to state media reports, her April conviction charged her with illegally controlling major banks granting loans and orchestrating financial fraud totaling $12.5 billion, resulting in $27 billion in losses. It turns out.
Mr. Lan’s arrest in October 2022 became one of the most high-profile arrests in Vietnam’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has intensified since 2022.
The Communist Party’s “Flaming Furnace” campaign also affected the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.
Former President Bo Van Tuong resigned in March over his involvement in the election campaign. Thousands of party officials have been disciplined since 2016, including former president Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who resigned, and former parliamentary speaker Vuong Dinh Hue.
To date, eight influential Politburo members have been dismissed on corruption charges, but none were removed from office from 1986 to 2016.
The anti-corruption campaign began in 2013, but authorities only began investigating the private sector in 2018. Since then, several executives of Vietnam’s fastest-growing businesses have been arrested.
This campaign had become a hallmark of Vietnam’s top politician, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. He passed away at the age of 80 earlier this year.
The ideologue called corruption a serious threat to the party and vowed that the campaign would be a “flaming furnace” untouched.
In another high-profile case, businessman Trinh Van Quyet was found guilty in August of defrauding shareholders of nearly $150 million by falsely inflating the value of his company.
The Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Quyet to 21 years in prison, and convicted 49 of his co-defendants on various charges, with the sentences suspended for several years.
Lan and her family founded the Van Tinh Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam transitioned from a state-run economy to a market-oriented approach open to foreign investors. She started helping her mother, a Chinese entrepreneur, sell cosmetics in Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market, according to state media outlet Tien Huong.
Van Thinh Phat has become one of Vietnam’s wealthiest real estate companies, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels, and shopping centers. This made her a central figure in the country’s financial industry.
Lan’s first trial shocked many Vietnamese.
Analysts say the scale of the fraud raises questions about whether other banks and companies have made similar mistakes, worsening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making it ideal for companies looking to diversify their supply chains. He said this is making foreign investors nervous as they seek to position Vietnam as a global hub. From China.
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Rising was reported from Bangkok.
