Vietnamese tycoon loses death row appeal over world’s biggest bank fraud | BBC News

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan has lost her appeal against her death sentence for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud.

The 68-year-old is now in a race for her life because the law in Vietnam states that if she can pay back 75% of what she took, her sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

In April a trial found she had secretly controlled Saigon Commercial Bank and taken out loans and cash over more than 10 years through a web of shell companies, amounting to a total of $44bn (£34.5bn).

Of that prosecutors say $27bn was misappropriated, and $12bn was judged to have been embezzled, the most serious financial crime for which she was sentenced to death.