Billionaire woman sentenced to death in fraud case

A billionaire woman was sentenced to death in the biggest fraud case in the history of Vietnam.

A court in the Vietnamese city of Ho Chi Minh sentenced 67-year-old property developer Throng May Lin to death for the crimes of looting 44 billion dollars and bribing government officials over 11 years.

Throng May Lin secured $44 billion in loans from Saigon Commercial Bank, one of Vietnam’s few major banks.

According to the report of the British Broadcasting Corporation, this case is being described as one of the few major bank frauds around the world and the court decision said that Throng May Lane will have to return 27 billion dollars.

But prosecutors say it may not be possible to recover that money, while some believe the death penalty is being used as pressure to recover billions of dollars from Throwing May Lane.

Authorities have not released many details regarding the case.

He said that 2,700 people were called to testify while 200 lawyers including 10 state prosecutors were involved in the case.

The evidence once morest the woman was collected in 104 boxes weighing 6 tons while 85 other people, including Throng May Lin, her husband and niece, were also prosecuted, who denied the charges.

It is being described as the most dramatic case of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party’s anti-corruption campaign.

The Vietnamese Communist Party believes that the lack of curbs on corruption is fueling popular unrest, which threatens the party’s monopoly on power.

For this purpose, an anti-corruption campaign was launched in 2016, during which 2 presidents and 2 deputy prime ministers were forced to resign, while hundreds of officials were dismissed or sent to jail.

Now one of the richest women in Vietnam, Throng May Lin, has been sentenced to death.

The woman denied all the allegations made in the case.

According to media reports, in 2011, Throng May Lane merged 3 small banks to form Saigon Commercial Bank.

Vietnamese law does not allow an individual to hold more than 5 percent of a bank’s shares, but according to prosecutors, Throng May Lin used a number of ghost companies and individuals to acquire more than 90 percent of the bank’s shares.

He added that Throng May Lane used his power to recruit his people into bank staff and through them sanction hundreds of loans for his network of ghost companies.

The volume of loans is also staggering which is equal to 93% of the bank’s total loans.

Prosecutors said that in a three-year period following February 2019, Throng May Lane, through his driver, obtained more than $4 billion in cash from the bank and stashed it in his basement.

Throng May Lin was arrested in October 2022.

Throng May Lane has 15 days to appeal the court’s death sentence.

According to Vietnamese media, Throng May Lin denied the allegations in her last statement in court last week, saying she had started thinking regarding suicide.

“I’m thinking regarding death, I’m angry that I was stupid enough to be a part of the banking sector despite knowing so little regarding it,” she said.