Vietnamese billionaire, Truong My Lan, was sentenced to death for $44 billion fraud
The verdict reflects the staggering scale of the fraud. Truong My Lan was found guilty of securing $44 billion (£35 billion) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. She has been ordered to repay $27 billion, a sum prosecutors fear may never be recovered. Some speculate that the death penalty is a way to pressure her into returning some of the missing billions.
The normally secretive communist authorities were unusually transparent about this case, providing detailed information to the media. They revealed that 2,700 people were summoned to testify, with 10 state prosecutors and around 200 lawyers involved in the case.
The evidence, weighing six tonnes and contained in 104 boxes, was presented in court. Truong My Lan was tried alongside 85 others, all of whom were found guilty. Four received life sentences, while others received prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended. Truong My Lan's husband and niece were sentenced to nine and 17 years respectively.
"This trial, I believe, is unprecedented in the communist era," says David Brown, a retired US state department official with extensive experience in Vietnam. "There has never been anything of this magnitude."
The trial marks a dramatic chapter in the "Blazing Furnaces" anti-corruption campaign led by Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong. Trong, a conservative ideologue, initiated the campaign in 2016, viewing corruption as a threat to the party's power monopoly. The campaign has seen the resignation of two presidents, two deputy prime ministers, and the discipline or imprisonment of hundreds of officials.
Truong My Lan, from a Sino-Vietnamese family in Ho Chi Minh City, rose from a market stall vendor to a prominent business figure. She accumulated wealth through property development and speculation, common among Vietnam's affluent, who often rely on personal connections with state officials to access land.
Despite Vietnam's manufacturing sector's international reputation, most wealthy Vietnamese have made their fortunes in property. Corruption has become rampant as the economy has grown, with individuals like Truong My Lan using their influence to secure loans and control financial institutions.