Vietnam court upholds death sentence for tycoon in $12 billion fraud case

A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported.

Lan, the chairwoman of real estate 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 southern Ho Chi Minh City determined there was no basis to reduce Lan's death sentence, reported online newspaper VnExpress.

If Lan is able to return three-quarters of the money embezzled while on death row, it is possible the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.

She is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country's lengthy anti-graft campaign known as "Blazing Furnace".

"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 state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.

"The defendant's actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy," it said.

State media cited 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.

Reuters could not immediately reach Lan's lawyers for comment.

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 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 $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.