Vietnam tycoon Lan gets life sentence; already has death sentence from separate trial

HANOI — A court in Vietnam on Thursday (Oct 17) handed a life sentence to real estate tycoon Truong My Lan on financial fraud charges, after she was sentenced to death in April in a separate trial.

Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Lan is among the high-profile business executives and state officials jailed in the communist-ruled country's years-long anti-graft campaign, known as "Blazing Furnace".

Lan's companies were accused of illegally raising over 30 trillion dong (S$1.5 billion) from issuing bonds to investors, according to a police statement released ahead of the trial.

Lan was also accused of illegally transferring US$4.5 billion (S$5.9 billion) into and out of Vietnam and laundering 445 trillion dong, the statement said.

The judges said Lan acknowledged many of her offences but refuted allegations she had directed the bond issuance, Tuoi Tre reported.

Reuters could not immediately reach her lawyers for comment.

In April, Lan was sentenced to death in a separate trial after being found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules in a 304 trillion dong financial fraud, the country's biggest on record.

Her arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of the country's largest private banks by deposits, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was at the centre of the fraud and largely owned by Lan through her proxies.

Documents reviewed by Reuters showed Vietnam's central bank had as of April pumped US$24 billion in "special loans" into SCB in an "unprecedented" rescue.

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