A real estate tycoon on death row in Vietnam has been sentenced to life in prison for fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars.
Truong My Lan, the chair of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Lan's companies were accused of illegally raising over 30 trillion dong ($1.78 billion) from issuing bonds to investors, according to a police statement released ahead of the trial.
Lan was also accused of illegally transferring $6.79 billion into and out of Vietnam and laundering 445 trillion dong ($2.64 billion), the statement said.
The judges said Lan acknowledged many of her offences but refuted allegations she had directed the bond issuance, Tuoi Tre reported.
Reuters could not immediately reach her lawyers for comment.
Nguyen Hieu, a schoolteacher whose life savings of $53,000 was tied up in illegal bonds issued by Lan's company, said the life sentence was fair.
"She deserves the punishment," he said, adding that he hoped the death sentence from the first trial was commuted so that Lan could pay back her victims.
It was not immediately clear if Lan would appeal the verdict and no date has yet been set for her appeal of her death penalty conviction to be heard.
All other 33 co-defendants were found guilty of various charges and received sentences ranging from two to 23 years in prison.
They included Chu Nap Kee, Lan's husband, who was sentenced to two years for money laundering.
In April, Lan was sentenced to death in a separate trial after being found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules in a 304 trillion dong financial fraud, the country's biggest on record.
The fraud equated to nearly 3 per cent of Vietnam's gross domestic product.
Her arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of the country's largest private banks by deposits, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was at the centre of the fraud and largely owned by Lan through her proxies.
Lan is among the high-profile business executives and state officials jailed in the communist-ruled country's years-long anti-graft campaign, known as "Blazing Furnace".
Since 2016, thousands of party officials have been disciplined, including former president Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the former head of parliament, Vuong Dinh Hue, both of whom resigned.
In all, eight members of the powerful Politburo have been ousted on corruption allegations, compared to none between 1986 and 2016.
Reuters/AP/ABC
