Vietnam property tycoon wins appeal, still faces 30 years behind bars
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Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan has been working to pay back hundreds of millions in stolen bank funds, according to her lawyers.
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HANOI – Vietnamese tycoon Truong My Lan has seen her life sentence reduced to 30 years in jail, after winning an appeal against the verdict from her second trial for charges including money laundering.
The judge said the jury had considered Lan’s sincerity and her efforts in trying to resolve the consequences, during a hearing at the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on April 21.
Lan – who also faces a death sentence from a separate trial for massive fraud – has been working to pay back hundreds of millions in stolen bank funds, according to her lawyers.
During the roughly month-long hearing, the court heard that Lan’s legal team and family have been working with foreign partners to develop a plan to repay the debt to bond holders and Saigon Commercial Bank within two to five years.
“I hope the jury will acknowledge my efforts to consider and evaluate the overall case humanely,” Lan said during proceedings.
The real estate mogul’s downfall captured global attention due to the severity of the sentence and the vast sums of money involved. She has become the most high-profile case of the ruling Communist Party’s corruption crackdown, which has led to the detention of scores of senior officials and business executives.
The 68-year-old had appealed against a life sentence delivered after a second trial in October 2024, during which she and 33 co-defendants were found guilty of illegally transporting roughly US$4.5 billion (S$5.9 billion) across international borders.
She was also found to have laundered some 446 trillion dong (S$22.5 billion) in pilfered assets from Saigon Commercial Bank, and misappropriated about 30 trillion dong from investors via bond issuances.
Lan’s husband, Eric Chu, had his two-year sentence from the second trial reduced to one year in jail. Her niece, Truong Hue Van, saw her sentence cut from five to three years.
Lan was sentenced to death in April 2024 after being found guilty of embezzling US$12.3 billion (S$16 billion) from Saigon Commercial Bank, in Vietnam’s largest-ever fraud case.
She lost her appeal against the death penalty in December, but can avoid execution if she returns at least three-quarters of the total embezzled assets, which prosecutors said amounted to an estimated US$11 billion. BLOOMBERG
