A court in Vietnam has sentenced businesswoman Truong Mi Lan to death. According to the prosecution, she used fraudulent schemes to embezzle more than $ 12 billion — an amount approximately equal to 3% of the annual GDP of a country with a population of 100 million.
67 — year-old Truong Mi Lan is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Vietnam. She started her career as a cosmetics salesman in Ho Chi Minh City's central market. When the communist Vietnamese government launched market reforms in the late 1980s, she took up land and real estate operations — something that many of Vietnam's wealthiest people made their fortunes out of, according to the BBC. In 2012, Truong Mi Lan gained control of the Saigon Commercial Bank. It was created through the merger of three banks that were facing bankruptcy, and soon became the largest private credit institution in Vietnam by assets.
Vietnamese law does not allow a single person to own more than 5% of any bank's shares, but Truong Mi Lan, using hundreds of front companies and proxies, actually controlled more than 90% of the Saigon Commercial Bank. She put her own people in key positions, after which they approved multimillion-dollar loans to firms that she owned — according to the investigation, these loans accounted for 93% of all loans issued by the bank.
Much of this money was cashed out by Truong Mi Lan. So, in the period from 2019 to the arrest in 2022, the personal driver of the entrepreneur, on her instructions, withdrew money worth about four billion dollars from the accounts and moved it to her basement.
Truong Mi Lan paid massive bribes to ensure that her business was not subject to audits. The highest-ranking officials received the money. One of the defendants in the case was the chief inspector of the Central Bank of Vietnam, to whom she paid five million dollars.
The trial of Truong Mi Lan was one of the largest in the history of Vietnam. 2700 people were called to give evidence, 10 prosecutors and about 200 lawyers participated in the case. The case materials fit in 104 boxes with a total weight of six tons. The authorities made the trial open and revealing — it was covered as widely as possible in the state-controlled media, and representatives of the prosecution regularly gave journalists detailed comments.
In total, the case involved more than 80 defendants, including officials, well-known businessmen and financiers in the country. Among the defendants in the case were Truong Mi Lan's husband, Hong Kong investor Eric Chu, and her niece. They received nine and 17 years in prison, respectively.
Truong Mi Lan pleaded not guilty, but expressed remorse, saying in her last words that she was poorly versed in the banking business and did not have enough "understanding of legal issues." Her lawyers said they would appeal.
The prosecutor's office estimated the total damage from the actions of Truong Mi Lan at about $ 22 billion — this amount was ordered to pay as a fine. As the BBC notes, there are suggestions that the death sentence is a way to put pressure on the convicted person to help find the stolen money in exchange for a potential commutation of the sentence on appeal. Reuters also emphasizes that although the death penalty is often used in Vietnam, it is imposed for violent crimes, not for economic crimes.
Vietnam has been running an anti-corruption campaign called "Flaming Furnaces"since 2016. It was initiated by the General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong. The campaign was launched as part of a plan for Vietnam to become a developed country with an innovative economy by 2045.
During the campaign, hundreds of officials were jailed or disciplined, and the country's two presidents and two deputy prime ministers were forced to resign. The case of Truong Mi Lan is the largest in this campaign. At the same time, according to the Hong Kong edition of the South China Morning Post, its results may undermine the confidence of international investors, as the process clearly showed that in Vietnam it is possible to conduct illegal activities in key sectors of the economy for years without attracting the attention of the authorities.
• Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68778636
67 — year-old Truong Mi Lan is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Vietnam. She started her career as a cosmetics salesman in Ho Chi Minh City's central market. When the communist Vietnamese government launched market reforms in the late 1980s, she took up land and real estate operations — something that many of Vietnam's wealthiest people made their fortunes out of, according to the BBC. In 2012, Truong Mi Lan gained control of the Saigon Commercial Bank. It was created through the merger of three banks that were facing bankruptcy, and soon became the largest private credit institution in Vietnam by assets.
Vietnamese law does not allow a single person to own more than 5% of any bank's shares, but Truong Mi Lan, using hundreds of front companies and proxies, actually controlled more than 90% of the Saigon Commercial Bank. She put her own people in key positions, after which they approved multimillion-dollar loans to firms that she owned — according to the investigation, these loans accounted for 93% of all loans issued by the bank.
Much of this money was cashed out by Truong Mi Lan. So, in the period from 2019 to the arrest in 2022, the personal driver of the entrepreneur, on her instructions, withdrew money worth about four billion dollars from the accounts and moved it to her basement.
Truong Mi Lan paid massive bribes to ensure that her business was not subject to audits. The highest-ranking officials received the money. One of the defendants in the case was the chief inspector of the Central Bank of Vietnam, to whom she paid five million dollars.
The trial of Truong Mi Lan was one of the largest in the history of Vietnam. 2700 people were called to give evidence, 10 prosecutors and about 200 lawyers participated in the case. The case materials fit in 104 boxes with a total weight of six tons. The authorities made the trial open and revealing — it was covered as widely as possible in the state-controlled media, and representatives of the prosecution regularly gave journalists detailed comments.
In total, the case involved more than 80 defendants, including officials, well-known businessmen and financiers in the country. Among the defendants in the case were Truong Mi Lan's husband, Hong Kong investor Eric Chu, and her niece. They received nine and 17 years in prison, respectively.
Truong Mi Lan pleaded not guilty, but expressed remorse, saying in her last words that she was poorly versed in the banking business and did not have enough "understanding of legal issues." Her lawyers said they would appeal.
The prosecutor's office estimated the total damage from the actions of Truong Mi Lan at about $ 22 billion — this amount was ordered to pay as a fine. As the BBC notes, there are suggestions that the death sentence is a way to put pressure on the convicted person to help find the stolen money in exchange for a potential commutation of the sentence on appeal. Reuters also emphasizes that although the death penalty is often used in Vietnam, it is imposed for violent crimes, not for economic crimes.
Vietnam has been running an anti-corruption campaign called "Flaming Furnaces"since 2016. It was initiated by the General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong. The campaign was launched as part of a plan for Vietnam to become a developed country with an innovative economy by 2045.
During the campaign, hundreds of officials were jailed or disciplined, and the country's two presidents and two deputy prime ministers were forced to resign. The case of Truong Mi Lan is the largest in this campaign. At the same time, according to the Hong Kong edition of the South China Morning Post, its results may undermine the confidence of international investors, as the process clearly showed that in Vietnam it is possible to conduct illegal activities in key sectors of the economy for years without attracting the attention of the authorities.
• Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68778636
