HANOI, Vietnam — A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was convicted Thursday of fraudulently obtaining billions of dollars in wealth in a case that was at the center of the government’s fight against corruption.
Truong My Lan was already convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City court of fraud worth $12.5 billion, or nearly 3% of the country’s gross domestic product, in a separate case and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
The trials were split into two parts due to the number of charges against her, and Thursday’s verdict, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, deepens Lan’s legal troubles as she waits for the outcome of an appeal against her death sentence.
Over the past decades, Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences and executed more than 400 prisoners. This is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes, but is generally only used in murder and drug trafficking cases.
“Standing here today is too high a price for me. I consider it my destiny and an accident in my career,” online newspaper VNexpress quoted Lan, president of property development company Van Thinh Phat, as telling judges in her closing statement last week.
“For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions impacted tens of thousands of families.”
Thirty-three other people were named co-defendants in the case, but details about the remaining sentences were not immediately available. Lan’s sentence was expected to be announced later in the day.
According to state media, Lan was convicted not only of obtaining wealth by fraud, but also of money laundering and collecting fees for illegal cross-border money transfers.
According to state media reports, it was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by illegally issuing bonds through four companies.
She was also found guilty of obtaining $18 billion in fraudulent amounts and using companies she controlled to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion to and from Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.
It was not immediately clear whether Lan would appeal the verdict, and no date has yet been set for the hearing of her appeal against her death sentence.
Her April conviction found she orchestrated a $12.5 billion financial fraud by illegally controlling a large lending bank, resulting in $27 billion in losses, according to state media reports.
Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was one of the most high-profile in Vietnam’s ongoing anti-corruption crackdown, which has intensified since 2022.
The Communist Party’s “burning furnace” campaign also touched the highest levels of Vietnamese politics.
Former president Vo Van Thuong resigned from office in March after being implicated in the campaign. Thousands of party officials have been disciplined since 2016, including former president Nguyen Xuan Phuc and former parliament speaker Vuong Dinh Hue, who resigned.
A total of eight members of the powerful Politburo were removed over corruption allegations, while no members were removed between 1986 and 2016.
The anti-corruption drive began in 2013, but it was not until 2018 that the authorities began scanning the private sector. Since then, several owners of fast-growing businesses in Vietnam have been arrested.
The campaign was the hallmark of Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, a leading Vietnamese politician. who died earlier this year at the age of 80.
The ideologue called corruption a serious threat to the party and announced that the campaign would be a “burning furnace” in which no one would be untouchable.
In another high-profile case, business tycoon Trinh Van Quyet was found guilty in August of defrauding shareholders of nearly $150 million by falsely inflating the value of his company.
The Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Quyet to 21 years in prison and sentenced 49 co-defendants on a variety of charges, with sentences ranging from probation to many years in prison.
Lan and her family founded Van Thinh Phat in 1992, after Vietnam’s transition from a state-owned economy to a more market-based approach open to foreign investors. According to state media, Tien Phong began helping her mother, a Chinese entrepreneur, sell cosmetics at the oldest market in Ho Chi Minh City.
Van Thinh Phat has become one of the richest real estate companies in Vietnam, developing projects that include luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping malls. This made it a key player in the country’s financial industry.
Lan’s first trial shocked many Vietnamese.
Analysts say the scale of the fraud raises questions about whether other banks or companies have made a similar mistake, hurting Vietnam’s economic prospects and making foreign investors nervous at a time when Vietnam is trying to position itself as an ideal home for companies trying to diversify supply chains from China.
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The uprising will be reported from Bangkok.