#Lan Truong

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Lan Truong

[dagonet]

Kaamelott, Livre III, Le Fléau de Dieu II

[anotherdayinbliss]

Lan Truong, Woman and Flowers

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Lan Truong

[comparativetarot]

Ace of Swords. Art by Lan Truong.

[ilikedetectives]

Was gonna check out some new mods today, but then got distracted by the craziest embezzling case in Vietnam's financial history, this real estate tycoon (Trương Mỹ Lan) stole what is an equivalent of 10% of Vietnam's entire GDP???????? (x)

[allthegeopolitics]

A court in Vietnam on Thursday ordered the death penalty for a real estate tycoon found guilty in a financial fraud case totalling more than $12 billion US. Vietnamese state media called it the country's largest-ever case of financial fraud. The conviction of Truong My Lan came amid a government anti-corruption crackdown by Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

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[nando161mando]

How Vietnam deals with bourgeois corruption

[memenewsdotcom]

Truong My Lan sentenced to death

[plethoraworldatlas]

As global billionaires see their wealth soar to record heights, one Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday in the Southeast Asian nation's largest-ever financial fraud case, part of a government crackdown on corruption.

Tru'o'ng Mỹ Lan, founder of the real estate developer Vạn Thịnh Phát Group, was arrested in October 2022 for illegally controlling and embezzling money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) for a decade after a 2011 merger she arranged.

"Lan embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to $27 billion—a figure equivalent to 6% of the country's 2023 [gross domestic product]," according toAgence France-Presse. "The court ordered Lan, 67, to pay almost the entire damages sum in compensation."

The BCCreported that "according to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4 billion in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement. That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes."

AFP spoke with one of the 42,000 victims of the scandal identified by authorities:

Nga, a 67-year-old Hanoi resident... told AFP Thursday that she had hoped for a life sentence for Lan so she could live to fully witness the pain her actions had caused ordinary people. "Many people worked hard to deposit money into the bank, but now she's received the death sentence and that's it for her," said Nga, using a pseudonym to protect her identity. "She can't see the suffering of the people." Nga has so far been unable to retrieve the $120,000 she invested with SCB.

Human rights advocates consider Vietnam to be a global leader in death penalty sentences and executions, though data on the topic are considered state secrets, so precise figures are not known.

[realestateradar]

Vietnam Upholds Death Sentence for Real Estate Tycoon Truong My Lan, Offers Sentence Reduction if $9 Billion is Repaid

A court in Vietnam has upheld the death sentence for prominent real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, the chairperson of Van Thinh Phat Group, following her conviction for defrauding the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB) of $12.5 billion. However, the court has also announced that her death sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment if she reimburses $9 billion, which represents three-quarters of the embezzled amount.

Truong My Lan, 68, was convicted for orchestrating over 2,500 fraudulent loans between 2012 and 2022, resulting in massive financial losses that equate to approximately 3% of Vietnam’s GDP. Her actions have raised alarms about the risks facing the country’s financial institutions and businesses.

On Tuesday, the Ho Chi Minh City court dismissed Lan’s appeal, maintaining the death sentence. Despite her defense team’s argument that she had already repaid some of the funds, the court ruled that the issue of seized assets remained unresolved. Lan’s defense also pointed to her remorse and partial repayments as mitigating factors, but these were not deemed sufficient in light of the immense impact on the banking system and public trust.

This case is part of Vietnam's ongoing anti-corruption campaign, known as the ‘Blazing Furnace’, which has led to the prosecution of influential figures in both politics and business. Lan’s company, Van Thinh Phat, has been a leading developer in the country’s real estate sector, known for luxury residential and commercial properties. Her fraudulent activities reportedly involved exploiting a merger between SCB and two other banks in 2011, allowing her to siphon funds and secure loans for ghost companies.

In a separate trial in October, Lan was also sentenced to life imprisonment for illegally raising $1.2 billion through bond sales and misappropriating $18 billion via fraudulent schemes.

Although the death sentence has been upheld, under Vietnamese law, death penalties are not immediately carried out, and the convicted person has the right to appeal further. Lan can still petition the president for clemency while attempting to meet the court’s condition to reduce her sentence. The case has had significant repercussions for Vietnam’s economic outlook, unsettling foreign investors and highlighting governance issues within the country’s financial sector.

[dagonet]

Kaamelott, Livre III, Le Fléau de Dieu II

[head-post]

Estate tycoon Truong My Lan facing death sentence in Vietnam’s biggest fraud case

Judges upheld the death sentence of real estate businesswoman Truong My Lan in a fraud case in Vietnam, according to AP News.

She was found guilty in April of embezzlement and bribery worth $12.5 billion, nearly 3% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022. As chairman of real estate firm Van Thinh Phat, Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022, issuing 2,500 loans.

Ho Chi Minh Court rejected her appeal, adding that her death sentence could be commuted to life if she repaid three-quarters of the losses. That amounts to about $11 billion, according to local media.

Her lawyers argued that she had recovered the money, but the court disagreed because there were legal challenges with some of the seized properties and prosecutors could not estimate their value.

Lan’s lawyers also pointed out several mitigating circumstances: she pleaded guilty, showed remorse and paid part of the amount. However, the court said that her offences had adversely affected banking activities, caused public unrest and undermined people’s trust.

Her arrest was one of the most high-profile in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, which intensified after 2022. The scale of her fraud shocked the country, with analysts wondering whether other banks or companies had committed a similar fraud.

This worsened Vietnam’s economic prospects and made foreign investors nervous at a time when Vietnam sought to position itself as a home for businesses that were shifting their supply chains away from China.

The scale of the crime led to the case being split into two trials. In October, Lan was sentenced to another life term. At that trial, she was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by illegally issuing bonds through four companies.

She was also found guilty of withdrawing $18 billion in fraudulently obtained funds and using companies she controlled to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion to and from Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.

Read more HERE

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Lan Truong Moustache

[radimus-co-uk]

Lan Truong