Truong My Lan: Vietnam’s billionaire businesswoman Trung Mai Lan was sentenced to death on Thursday (April 11) in the world’s largest bank fraud case. A court in Ho Chi Minh city of Southern Vietnam gave this sentence to Trung Mai Lan. The country’s biggest financial scam case was going on against the billionaire woman.
The billionaire businesswoman is one of the few women in Vietnam who has been sentenced to death for white-collar crime. A case of bank fraud of US $ 44 billion was registered against the company of 67-year-old real estate businessman Trung Mai Lan. This is about 3 percent of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022.
Had captured the country’s largest bank for 11 years
According to the BBC report, Trung Mai Lan has been found guilty of robbing the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank for 11 years. Lan controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022. During this period, he made transactions worth billions of rupees in thousands of benami companies by bribing government officials. He had to return an amount of US $ 27 billion to the bank.
Prosecutors in the bank fraud case said that this amount would never be recovered from them. At the same time, some believe that the death penalty will force the businesswomen to return the money. This billionaire woman was arrested in October 2022 as part of a campaign against corruption in Vietnam.
2700 witnesses, 200 lawyers and 6 tons of evidence
2700 witnesses, 200 lawyers and 10 government lawyers appeared in the world’s biggest bank fraud case. The evidence against Trung Mai Lan was presented in 104 boxes, which weighed 6 tons. Along with Trung Mai Lan, 85 people were sentenced in this case. Of these, 4 have been sentenced to life imprisonment and others to 20 to 30 years in jail. The businessman’s husband and niece have been sentenced to 9 and 17 years of imprisonment respectively.
Due to the ongoing anti-corruption campaign in Vietnam, two Presidents and two Deputy PMs have even had to resign. Not only this, hundreds of government officials have even been sent to jail. At the same time, now the name of Trung Mai Lan, one of the richest women of the country, has also been included in this list.
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