BANGKOK – An appeals court in Ho Chi Minh City has reduced the life sentence of Vietnam’s biggest corporate fraudster to 30 years in prison after she paid millions of dollars in compensation to buyers of bogus bonds, state media reported Monday.
Truong My Lan, the 68-year old chairwoman of property company Van Thinh Phat, was separately sentenced to death in April last year for embezzling US$27 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank in which she held a more-than-90% stake. Her appeal against the death penalty was rejected in December, but may still be commuted if she can repay three quarters of the money.
The court’s decision Monday was the outcome of Lan’s second appeal, relating to a life sentence she received in October for masterminding the fraud.
The People’s High Court judges said Lan had paid compensation to her bond fraud victims and authorities will liquidate her assets and confiscate the proceeds.
They reduced her fraud sentence from life to 20 years and upheld sentences for money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers, leading to a total sentence of 30 years in prison.
Vietnam’s courts have been busy handing down stiff sentences for executives and party cadres caught up in its “blazing furnace” corruption crackdown, which has uncovered widespread bribery and embezzlement in industries such as property and healthcare.
Lan represented herself in court as she sought to convince prosecutors she was doing her utmost to repair the damage caused by the biggest fraud in Vietnamese corporate history.
She has not always been so repentant, claiming at one point that she was a “victim” and asking for the return of two albino crocodile Hermes Birkin bags, believed to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.
