A Vietnamese court has upheld the death sentence of real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, rejecting her appeal in a high-profile case involving the embezzlement of $12 billion. The decision was made by the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City, which ruled there was no grounds to reduce Lan’s sentence. However, the court noted that her sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment if she repaid three-quarters of the embezzled funds.
The prosecution described Lan’s actions as causing unprecedented damage, both financially and socially, noting that the sum involved was unrecoverable and had significant repercussions on the country’s financial markets and economy.
The embezzlement case, one of the largest in Vietnam’s history, shook the nation, with the stolen amount representing nearly 3 percent of the country’s 2022 GDP. Lan was convicted of orchestrating the fraud and illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), leading to a run on the bank when her arrest was announced in 2022. The scandal has left around 36,000 victims.
Despite Lan’s lawyer citing mitigating factors such as her admission of guilt, expressions of remorse, and partial repayment of the stolen funds, the court found these insufficient to warrant a reduction in her sentence.
Lan, the chairwoman of the Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, remains one of the most prominent figures arrested in Vietnam’s ongoing anticorruption campaign, “Blazing Furnace,” which has targeted business executives, government officials, and members of the police and military since its intensification in 2022. Lan retains the right to request a review of the case under Vietnam’s retrial procedures.
