Trương Mỹ Lan, 68, chairwoman of real estate developer Vạn Thịnh Phát, has been sentenced to death for bribery, violating bank regulations and embezzlement. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — Trương Mỹ Lan, chairwoman of real estate developer Vạn Thịnh Phát, has been sentenced to death after she was found guilty of the largest financial fraud in Việt Nam’s history.

The HCM City People’s Court on Thursday handed down a death sentence to the 68-year-old chairwoman .

She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for bribery and another 20 years for violating banking regulations and the death penalty for embezzlement, marking this case as the largest scandal in Southeast Asia.

Lan has also been ordered by the court to pay compensation of more than VNĐ673.8 trillion (US$27 billion) to Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB).

Rejecting all arguments from Lan and her legal team, the People’s Procuracy maintained the charges against her due to the severity of the crimes and the impact on public trust in the leadership of the Party and State.

Lan’s husband, Eric Chu Nap-kee, chairman of the board of Times Square Vietnam Joint Stock Company, received a nine-year prison sentence for violating banking regulations at his wife's direction.

Her niece, Trương Huệ Vân, CEO of Windsor Property Management, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for embezzlement.

Đỗ Thị Nhàn, former head of the central bank’s department of inspection and supervision, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting $5.2 million in bribes to conceal SCB’s poor financial status.

Although Nhàn admitted to the wrongdoing and has already repaid the full amount to the State, she has been required to pay a fine of VNĐ100 million.

The court sentenced several SCB executives, including Đinh Văn Thành, former chairman of the Board of Directors of SCB (currently a fugitive), Bùi Anh Dũng, former chairman of the Board of Directors of SCB, and Võ Tấn Hoàng Văn, general director of SCB, for charges of embezzlement and violating bank regulations.

Other SCB executives and government officials received sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment for embezzlement and violating banking regulations.

In addition, Nguyễn Cao Trí, chairman of Capella Group, who was found guilty of misappropriating VNĐ1 trillion from Trương Mỹ Lan, was sentenced to eight years in prison for abuse of trust. The court reduced his sentence because he had returned the money and assets.

The headquarters of Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB) in HCM City, the largest private lender by assets in Việt Nam. VNS Photo Bồ Xuân Hiệp

While all other defendants in the case admitted the charges brought against them, Trương Mỹ Lan was the only one who maintained her innocence.

She denied manipulating the lender’s operations, claiming she only owned a 5 per cent stake in the bank while the remaining shares were held by her daughters and friends.

A lawyer for the chairwoman was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Vạn Thịnh Phát had a network of 1,000 fake companies set up by the chairwoman to “borrow” money from the bank and acquire shares in it.

In 2011, Lan was proposed by the central bank to merge two other private banks with SCB, the largest private bank by assets in Việt Nam.

Between 2012 and 2022, SCB gave Lan over 2,500 loans worth over VNĐ1 quadrillion, or 93 per cent of its loans. As of October 2022, Lan and her company Vạn Thịnh Phát Group still had nearly 1,300 outstanding loans of VNĐ677 trillion in principal and interest.

To cover up the lender’s poor financial state, Lan bribed various government auditors and inspectors.

The value of Lan’s asset appropriation, which occurred during the 10-year period, was equivalent to over 10 per cent of Việt Nam’s GDP in 2022.

The police have already seized millions of US dollars in cash and frozen assets linked to the chairwoman to be used to compensate for all the damages in the case.

The arrest of Trương Mỹ Lan in late 2022 was part of a national corruption crackdown that has ensnared many officials and members of Việt Nam’s business elite in recent years. — VNS