A court in Vietnam has upheld a death sentence against the property tycoon Truong My Lan but said her life could be spared if she returns three-quarters of the $12 billion she embezzled.
Lan, the chairwoman of the developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record.
The High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday determined there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, the online newspaper VnExpress reported.
If Lan, 68, is able to return three-quarters of the money she embezzled, it is possible the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.
By law, her death sentence would be commuted to life in prison if she turns 75 before the execution is carried out.
Lan is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy “Blazing Furnace” anti-graft campaign.
“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution was quoted as saying at the appeal hearing by the state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.
“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.”
State media quoted Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled”, but prosecutors said that was insufficient.
Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.
Lan’s arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of the country’s largest private banks, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was at the centre of the fraud and largely owned by Lan through proxies.
Documents reviewed by Reuters showed Vietnam’s central bank as of April had pumped $24 billion in “special loans” into SCB in an “unprecedented” rescue.
Apart from the death sentence, Lan was handed a life sentence at a separate trial in October after being found guilty of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers.
Lan’s lawyers said multiple investments and loans are now being negotiated to clear her debts, potentially making money available to comply with the court’s repayment conditions.
However, it is unclear how much of this money is tied to properties that can be sold to raise money or assets that have been frozen by the authorities.