21-04-2025
Life sentence cut to 30 years in prison for Vietnam's death-row property mogul Truong My Lan
[HO CHI MINH CITY] Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan on Monday (Apr 21) won an appeal against her life sentence for charges including laundering 445.75 trillion dong (S$22.6 billion) and misappropriating 30 trillion dong from investors through fraudulent bond issuances, state media reported.
At the conclusion of the roughly monthlong hearing as part of Vietnam's largest fraud case on record, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City decided to reduce her penalty to 30 years in prison.
The 68-year-old property tycoon remains on death row for a separate charge of embezzlement, which led to losses totalling 677 trillion dong at Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over the course of a decade – equivalent to about 6 per cent of Vietnam's gross domestic product in 2022.
She was also found guilty of bribing government officials, violating banking regulations, and illegally transferring US$4.5 billion across borders.
'The consequences were unexpected and an accident,' Lan said during the hearing last week. 'I hope the jury will acknowledge my efforts to consider and evaluate the overall case humanely.'
After the first appeal trial last December, the jury said that if the convicted felon returns three-fourths of the losses she caused during the execution of the verdict, a commutation from the death sentence to life in prison could be considered according to the law.
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Lan, back then, asked for a 'special mechanism' for the case and permission to participate in the handling of assets, so that she could remedy the repercussions and pay back the money.
On Apr 9, Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh established the Interdisciplinary Steering Committee for organising the execution of judgments and the recovery of assets misappropriated in the Van Thinh Phat case.
This is the most high-profile case in Vietnam's anti-corruption drive in recent years, which has already seen numerous high-ranking politicians and business leaders detained.
Junk bonds
Lan and her accomplices were found to have misappropriated funds from nearly 36,000 investors who bought bonds issued and sold illegally through companies under Lan's property empire Van Thinh Phat.
Investors were mostly depositors at SCB and were courted by the bank to become secondary buyers of these junk notes in 25 batches between 2018 and 2020.
After the fraud, Lan and the other defendants withdrew the scammed money, concealed the cash flow, and utilised the capital for her personal purposes that were not in accordance with the announced issuance plans.
According to the case filings, the bond fraud was uncovered as part of Lan's sophisticated effort to raise funds to address the financial troubles of SCB, in which she held the majority stake. In 2018, SCB was under strict supervision by the authority and therefore faced difficulties in granting credit to companies in the Van Thinh Phat ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Lan told the court during the trial that the severe consequences of the case occurred only after her arrest in October 2022. She believed that SCB was still operating normally before that, without any losses or illiquidity, and was even in the process of preparing for restructuring.
Trillions of dong recovered
During the latest proceedings, the Judgment Enforcement Agency informed that more than 8.6 trillion dong had been recovered from the first phase of the case, with the possibility of collecting an additional 15 trillion dong in the near future.
It is therefore highly possible for Lan to meet her obligations as the recovered money will be utilised to compensate bondholders first.
Lan said last week that her legal team and family have been working with a group of foreign partners to prepare resources and forge plans to repay her debts to investors and SCB within two to five years.
She previously said in a separate trial last year that Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan of Berjaya Corporation and other foreign investors had expressed interest in buying her key assets.
However, as she and her family members, including her Hong Kong husband Eric Chu, face charges of money laundering and illegally transferring funds across borders, Lan said that many friends and foreign partners were 'afraid to send money to assist', leading to the prolonged procedures.
Even though Chu was not among the 27 other individuals who filed appeals against their sentences in the second trial, he had his penalty cut by one year, bringing his total time in jail to eight years. Lan's niece Truong Hue Van also saw her sentence reduced by two years, resulting in 16 years behind bars.
