Recently, the high-profile case involving Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan has shaken the financial community and the entire country. Sentenced to death for fraud amounting to $27 billion, she had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment for money laundering. This extraordinary case has highlighted the extent of corruption and fraud on a colossal scale.
Truong My Lan was convicted last April of defrauding money from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) which she was accused of illegally controlling. The consequences of her actions have reverberated on thousands of people who had deposited their savings in this bank, thus causing shockwaves throughout the country and unprecedented protests from the victims.
After a retrial, a special jury found that Truong My Lan had laundered as much as $17.7 billion and engaged in illegal transactions worth $4.5 billion across borders. In addition, she was convicted of bond fraud involving a staggering $1.2 billion. The prosecution described Truong My Lan as “the mastermind of the operation, having committed these crimes in a sophisticated manner and on numerous occasions, resulting in particularly serious consequences.”
In addition to her life sentence, 33 other defendants were also convicted and sentenced to terms ranging from two to 23 years in prison. Among them, Truong My Lan’s husband was sentenced to two years for money laundering, while her niece was sentenced to five years in prison for fraudulently affixing her signature to documents.
The case has left thousands of victims across the country, including Nguyen Thi Huong who lost her entire savings of $20,000 in the case. She expressed deep resentment towards the party and government, highlighting the sense of betrayal felt by the victims.
Truong My Lan, in her final plea in court, expressed remorse and acknowledged her mistakes, asking for leniency. However, her request to get back two Hermès albino crocodile bags worth hundreds of thousands of dollars was rejected by the court.
About 36,000 people who had invested in SCB bonds were identified as victims of the fraud. Truong My Lan was ordered to compensate them, with no further details on how this would be implemented.
The case has plunged many victims into distress, as said Nguyen Thi Huong, who, after losing everything, saw her health deteriorate and her children deprived of further education due to lack of financial means..
Truong My Lan, head of the Van Thinh Phat real estate group, orchestrated a complex scheme to embezzle SCB funds between 2018 and 2022, disrupting the national economy on a large scale. Her accomplices were tasked with withdrawing money from the bank to transfer it illegally, thus concealing the origin of the funds and using them fraudulently.
Beyond the financial aspects, this case has sparked anger and dismay among victims who are demanding justice and compensation. Protests have broken out in Hanoi to demand the authorities’ support in returning the lost funds.
Despite the confiscation of property and assets, Truong My Lan continues to proclaim her innocence in the face of a death sentence handed down in April for an amount of $12.5 billion, a sentence she is contesting on appeal without a date having yet been set.
The Truong My Lan case has exposed the flaws of a corrupt financial system and highlighted the disastrous consequences of large-scale fraud on Vietnamese society, recalling the importance of transparency and justice for stability and people’s trust in their institutions.