Vietnamese tycoon in race to raise $9bn to avoid execution

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Posted on 12/02/2024 5:12:13 PM PST by BenLurkin

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan is in a race for her life.

On Tuesday, the 68-year-old will hear the verdict in her appeal against the death sentence handed down on her in April for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud.

It was a rare and shocking verdict - she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.

The court found she had secretly controlled Saigon Commercial Bank, the country’s fifth biggest lender, and taken out loans and cash over more than 10 years through a web of shell companies, amounting to a total of $44 billion (£34.5 billion).

Of that prosecutors say $27 billion was misappropriated, and $12 billion was judged to have been embezzled, the most serious financial crime for which she was sentenced to death.

However, the law in Vietnam states that if she can pay back 75% of what she took, her sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

During her trial in April Truong My Lan, who had been chairwoman of the real estate firm, Van Thinh Phat Group, was sometimes defiant. But in the recent hearings for her appeal against the sentence she has been more contrite.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...

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1 posted on 12/02/2024 5:12:13 PM PST by BenLurkin

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