Vietnam death row tycoon faces money laundering trial in ‘blazing furnace’ crackdown

Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, was found guilty in April of swindling cash from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) for over a decade in one of the biggest corruption cases in history.

Lan and 33 other defendants were brought to the court in Ho Chi Minh City early Thursday in a convoy of police vans, as more than a dozen fraud victims waited outside demanding to be let in to the hearing.

Security was tight as Lan – wearing a face mask and flanked by police officers – sat down for the start of a month-long trial in which she and her co-defendants face new charges of money laundering, illegal cross-border trafficking of cash and fraud.

Around 36,000 people have been identified as victims of the SCB fraud, which shocked the communist nation and prompted rare protests from those who lost their money.