Real estate tycoon’s death sentence is a turning point in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The unusually harsh death sentence given to a real estate tycoon in Vietnam was a pivotal moment in the decadelong “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign as the Vietnamese business community wrestled with an uncertain future Friday.

Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was sentenced to death Thursday by a court in Ho Chi Minh city for orchestrating the country’s largest ever financial fraud case, was one of Vietnam’s most important businesspeople for years. She has been convicted for fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP — and for illegally controlling a major bank and allowing loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion, state media outlets reported.

Vietnam typically gives death penalties crimes like terrorism or murder and, according to Amnesty International, has among the highest rates of capital punishment worldwide. But a death sentence for a financial crime is rare in the country.

Thursday’s sentencing marked a “big turning point” in the ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam, said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

“It signals that the party’s commitment to a crackdown on corruption has … expanded,” he said.

The Communist Party’s so-called Blazing Furnace campaign began in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 that authorities began scanning the private sector. Since then, several owners of Vietnam’s fast-growing businesses have been arrested. The trial for Trinh Van Quyet — the former chair of the real estate company FLC, which also owns Vietnam’s third-largest airline, Bamboo Airways — will likely be heard next. He was arrested in 2022. Giang said Lan’s trial was “an example” for upcoming cases.

The anti-corruption