This is the epilogue of the biggest financial scandal Vietnam has ever known. A court in Ho Chi Minh City this Thursday, April 11, sentenced Truong My Lan, the boss of a real estate giant, to the death penalty, accused of massive fraud, estimated by the prosecution at 25 billion euros. And 85 other defendants received sentences ranging from suspended sentence to life in prison.
Published on: 04/11/2024 – 3:05 p.m. Modified on: 04/11/2024 – 3:07 p.m.
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Truong My Lan was arrested in October 2023. She was on trial with 85 other defendants for having defrauded approximately 42,000 people for 11 years and until 2022, via a bond arrangement transiting through the Saigon commercial bank, owned more than 90% by his group. Vietnamese justice sentenced her to death.
Beyond the astronomical amount of the scam (nearly 44 billion euros, including 25 billion which will never be recovered), the actions of the manager at the head of one of the largest real estate groups in the country, have “ eroded public confidence in the leadership of the party and state », Estimated the jury. An act which cannot be forgiven and which demands exemplary punishment in a country ruled by the Communist Party and whose general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong launched several years ago into a major anti-corruption campaign targeting the highest political spheres. and economic.
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85 other accused
According to observers, this trial, spectacular due to the number of defendants, victims and the scale of the fraud, was for the ruling Communist Party an attempt to reassert its authority. Capital punishment is one of them.
It had only been requested by the prosecutor once morest Ms. Truong, considered the mastermind of the operation. The latter, during her last public speaking, confessed to having thought regarding suicide. “ In my despair I thought of death “, she declared, in comments reported by Your Three, a state newspaper. “ I’m so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in such a difficult industry (banking) that I had little knowledge regarding “, she assured. More than a thousand properties were confiscated from him, according to prosecutors.
The other defendants, former central bank officials, ex-government members or managers of the bank involved in the fraudulent scheme, Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), were sentenced to sentences ranging from suspended sentence to life imprisonment. .
Anger of defrauded people
Hundreds of people who lost their funds almost overnight demonstrated on Wednesday April 10 in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. A large police force was deployed in front of the headquarters of the central bank in Hanoi.
According to Amnesty International, “numerous executions” take place each year in Vietnam, of the order of several dozen per year.
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