Truong My Lan, a 68-year-old Vietnamese property tycoon, is facing execution after being convicted for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud. She was sentenced to death for embezzling billions of dollars through her secret control of Saigon Commercial Bank. However, she has one chance to avoid execution: raise $9 billion.
The court found that Truong My Lan secretly controlled Saigon Commercial Bank, Vietnam’s fifth-largest lender, for over ten years. She used shell companies to take out loans and misappropriate funds, stealing a total of $44 billion. Prosecutors determined that $27 billion of this was misused, and $12 billion was embezzled. This resulted in her death sentence for the most serious financial crime in Vietnam.
Her case is rare because very few women in Vietnam are sentenced to death for financial crimes. Now, Truong My Lan is fighting for her life. Vietnamese law allows a death sentence to be reduced to life imprisonment if 75% of the stolen amount is returned. This means she must raise $9 billion from the $12 billion she embezzled.
Truong My Lan started her career selling cosmetics in markets with her mother. Over time, she expanded into real estate and became the chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, a prominent real estate company. When she was convicted in April, it marked a dramatic moment in the Communist Party’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, led by Nguyen Phu Trong.
Along with Truong My Lan, 85 other defendants were convicted. While some received life sentences, others got prison terms ranging from 20 years to just a few years.
Now, Truong My Lan is working hard to raise the required $9 billion to avoid death. Her lawyers claim that she is struggling to sell her assets, including luxury properties in Ho Chi Minh City and shares in businesses. Many of these assets are frozen by the government, and selling them quickly is difficult. To help reach the target, she has even sought loans from friends.
Her lawyers have argued that if she were serving a life sentence instead of facing death, she could more easily sell her assets and pay back the stolen money. They believe that under the current death sentence, it’s harder for her to negotiate the best prices for her property.
As Truong My Lan works to gather the $9 billion, her future remains uncertain. If she succeeds in returning the money, she could avoid execution and spend the rest of her life in prison. But for now, the race against time continues.
