Lan and her household based Van Thinh Phat, which grew into considered one of Vietnam’s wealthiest actual property firms.
Truong My Lan, a distinguished determine in Vietnam’s actual property trade, has been handed a death sentence in the nation’s largest monetary fraud case to date. At 67 years outdated, Lan, who chairs the actual property firm Van Thinh Phat, was discovered responsible of orchestrating a fraud amounting to a staggering $12.5 billion, equal to almost 3 p.c of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022. Alongside Lan, her niece, Truong Hue Van, who serves because the chief govt of Van Thinh Phat, obtained a 17-year jail sentence for aiding her aunt in the fraudulent actions.
Lan’s involvement traces again to the 2011 merger of the troubled Saigon Joint Commercial Bank (SCB) with two different lenders, a transfer coordinated by Vietnam’s central financial institution. Government paperwork allege that Lan misused the financial institution for private achieve, exerting unlawful management over it from 2012 to 2022. She purportedly utilized a community of “ghost companies,” each home and worldwide, to concern loans to herself and her associates, ensuing in large losses totaling $27 billion.
Furthermore, Lan stands accused of bribery, together with funds to authorities officers, considered one of whom obtained a life sentence for accepting $5.2 million in bribes. The courtroom, in delivering the death penalty, emphasised that Lan’s actions not solely violated people’ property rights but in addition destabilized SCB, eroding public belief in the management of the Communist get together and state.
Truong My Lan’s background sheds gentle on her journey to prominence. Born in 1956, she initially assisted her Chinese mom in promoting cosmetics at Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market. In 1992, Lan and her household based Van Thinh Phat, which grew into considered one of Vietnam’s wealthiest actual property firms. That identical yr, she married Hong Kong investor Eric Chu Nap-kee, with whom she has two daughters.
Van Thinh Phat’s portfolio contains prime downtown properties in Ho Chi Minh City, such because the towering Times Square Saigon, the distinguished Windsor Plaza Hotel, the Capital Place workplace constructing, and the esteemed Sherwood Residence lodge, the place Lan resided prior to her arrest in October 2022 amidst Vietnam’s intensified anti-corruption marketing campaign.
