Posted on 04/11/2024 9:27:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced Thursday to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Vietnam Net said.
The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was formally charged with fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP.
Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion to the bank, reported state media VnExpress. The court asked her to compensate the bank $26.9 million.
Despite mitigating circumstances — this was a first-time offense and Lan participated in charity activities — the court attributed its harsh sentence to the seriousness of the case, saying Lan was at the helm of an orchestrated and sophisticated criminal enterprise that had serious consequences with no possibility of the money being recovered, VnExpress said.
Her actions “not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organizations but also push SCB (Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank) into a state of special control; eroding people’s trust in the leadership of the Party and State,” VnExpress quoted the judgement as saying.
Her niece, Truong Hue Van, the chief executive of Van Thinh Phat, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for aiding her aunt.
Lan and her family established the Van Thing Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favor of a more market-oriented approach that was open to foreigners. She had started out helping her mother, a Chinese businesswoman, to sell cosmetics in Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market, according to state media Tien Phong.
(Excerpt) Read more at huffpost.com ...
those 75 or older are exempt, and officials convicted of corruption charges can be spared if they pay back at least 75% of the profits they illicitly obtained
Sooo... she caused 27 billion in losses. So she comes up with 20 billion and she’s home free!
“Nothing of this scale can happen without government and bureaucratic collusion.”
indeed ... and dozens of lower-level co-conspirators were convicted as well ...
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
Good point.
Jon Corzine offers his two finger applause.
In some countries, bribes won't work because the authorities can simply take all your property after killing you.
That's how it worked in Bolshevik Russia. And I suppose that's how it works in many African kleptocracies today.
Is she Thinh or is she Phat?
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/companies/how-van-thinh-phat-scb-fraud-moved-44b-4689625.html
Is this like our Congress? RICO
Trump 2024
.....arguably, despite villainous people like LBJ, McNamara, Rusk, Westmoreland and others..........the US won the Vietnam war in at least one major respect and that is that Capitalism prevails over communism in Vietnam.
The communist’s so far have retained police power and control. Hopefully, they will follow through and execute this evil woman. If they do, Communism can make one point over our system by claiming that “at least we can arrest, put on trial and execute/punish to the maximum our crooks while you guys cannot even arrest your crooked, bribery soaked, corrupt, traitorous President” much less imprison or execute him.
it would be completely impossible for a billionaire to get the death penalty here, no matter how many lives their crime destroyed.
= = =
Unless that billionaire did not do any crime.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.