A property tycoon in Vietnam is facing having to come up with more than £7 billion in a race to save her life.
Truong My Lan, the chair of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, is the mastermind behind what is the biggest financial fraud case on record.
The 67-year-old was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules following a month-long trial in April.
She had secretly controlled Saigon Commercial Bank, the country’s fifth biggest lender, taking out loans and cash over more than 10 years through a web of shell companies.
This amounts to a total of £34.5 billion – with £21 billion misappropriated and the rest believed to have been embezzled.
If Lan is able to return at leastthree-quarters of the money she embezzled, it is possible that her sentence could be changed to life imprisonment.
A prosecutor was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper VietnamNet that the effect her crimes have had on the country is ‘unprecedented’.
They said: ‘The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable.
‘Her actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.’
The court upheld the tycoon’s death sentence after rejecting her appeal against the conviction.
This means Lan has become one of the very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.
State media cited her lawyer as saying she had mitigating circumstances, including ‘having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled’.
