(Image via msn.com)
Business Manager: Brendan Flaherty
Email: bflaherty1@umassd.edu
On December 3rd, it was announced that a real estate tycoon from Vietnam would be held to the death sentence for committing the country’s biggest financial crime.
The only thing that could possibly save her from this fate would be to pay a reimbursement of $11 billion of what she earned in defrauded money, and even then, she would be stuck with living out a life sentence in jail.
The woman was identified as Truong My Lan, a 67-year-old woman accused of using embezzlement and bribery to gain $12.5 billion, a whopping 3% of the country’s GDP.
So, how could she have collected all this money, and what impact is this having on the country as a whole?
Lan was under the control of the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank starting as far back as 2012 and has subsequently allowed 2,500 loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion to the bank.
She acquired this control through a company that she helped create all the way back in 1992 called the Van Thing Phat, which quickly became the wealthiest real-estate firm in all of Vietnam.
This title was secured when she allowed the merging of the company with the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank. She would send out various loans to companies that never actually existed and then would receive the loans for herself.
Bribery came into play when she bribed officials to turn a blind eye to her nefarious acts and to cover her tracks.
The bank was also on the list of reimbursements that needed to occur, starting with a reimbursement of $26.9 million.
In court, her lawyers tried to argue the fact that Lan had already attempted to give back the money, but there were several issues along the way, including valuing the properties that she had given up.
As mentioned in an article from MSN, “Lan has turned over more than 600 family properties to the court” in hopes of repaying some of the large amounts of fraudulent money she has acquired.
Lan has greatly regretted her actions and even said she felt “…pained due to the waste of national resources.”
A case like this rarely receives the death penalty in the first place. Most of the time, the death penalty is carried out for crimes like murder and drug trafficking, at least in Vietnam.
In this case, however, not only has the bank suffered, but the country as a whole has suffered from the lack of income.
The court has argued that the country’s economy, society, and financial market have suffered as a part of this large scheme. It has especially turned away any possibility of foreign investors putting their money into the country.
This is especially detrimental, as the country is working to move away and position itself as a home for businesses pivoting their supply chains away from China.
This was all a part of an ongoing operation from the country to try and crack down on corruption, calling the operation “Blazing Furnace” and working to root out corruption in every layer of the country.
According to CNN, “She is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy anti-graft campaign.”
Now we wait in anticipation as to what exactly she plans to do to make up for the copious amounts of money that she has acquired illegally. Essentially, it’s a race against the clock to see if she can source enough money to settle the debts to be paid.