A Vietnamese court has rejected a real estate tycoon\u2019s appeal, upholding the death sentence handed down for the embezzlement of $12bn. The court in Ho Chi Minh City ruled against Truong My Lan\u2019s appeal in the case, which has raised concerns over the impact on the country\u2019s economy due to the huge sums involved. The High People\u2019s Court determined there was no basis to reduce Lan\u2019s death sentence, local media reported. However, it also said that the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment should she repay three-quarters of the money. \u201cThe consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,\u201d the prosecution said at the appeal hearing, according to state-run online newspaper VietnamNet. \u201cThe defendant\u2019s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.\u201d Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was Vietnam\u2019s biggest financial fraud case on record. She is convicted of orchestrating financial fraud amounting to $12bn, equalling nearly 3 percent of the country\u2019s 2022 gross domestic product (GDP), and for illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB). Her arrest in 2022 prompted a run on SCB, one of the country\u2019s largest private banks. About 36,000 people have been identified as victims of the fraud, which shocked the communist nation and prompted rare protests. State media cited Lan\u2019s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including \u201chaving admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled\u201d, but prosecutors said that was insufficient. Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam\u2019s cassation or retrial procedures. The 68-year-old is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country\u2019s lengthy anticorruption campaign known as \u201cBlazing Furnace\u201d, which has intensified since 2022, netting a number of business executives, government officials and members of the police and armed forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Vietnamese court has rejected a real estate tycoon\u2019s appeal, upholding the death sentence handed down for the embezzlement of $12bn. The court in Ho…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21452,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}