Hanoi: Real estate tycoon and billionaire Truong My Lan was sentenced to death on Thursday by a court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city in the country’s largest financial fraud case, according to local reports. Lan, 67, was accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion – nearly 3 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2022 – as the chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group.
Lan reportedly controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank illegally between 2012 to 2022 to siphon off funds amounting to 304 trillion dong ($12.5 billion) through thousands of ghost companies and by paying bribes to government officials. Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022.
