Vietnamese Real Estate Tycoon Sentenced To Death For $12 Billion Fraud Case

This is big news. Another tycoon fraud bites the dust. What started as a simple slap on the wrist turned into a major scandal. was taken down because authorities found her driver's diary where he documented his daily money deliveries.

Associated Press 4/11/24: HANOI, Vietnam — Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced Thursday to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Thanh Nien said.

The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, or nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022 to siphon off these funds through thousands of ghost companies and by paying bribes to government officials.

Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

The real estate sector in Vietnam has been hit particularly hard: An estimated 1,300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023, developers have been offering discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite rent for shophouses falling by a third in Ho Chi Minh City, many in the city center are still empty, according to state media.