Vietnam sentences billionaire to death for financial fraud.

The chairwoman of a major developer, Van Thinh Phat, Chung Mi Lan, has been found guilty of embezzling money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a period of ten years. While the wealth of global billionaires has reached record highs, on Thursday, in the largest financial fraud case in Southeast Asia's history, the Vietnamese real estate mogul was sentenced to death as part of the government's crackdown on corruption.

The Van Thinh Phat Group, founded by Chung My Lan, was arrested in October 2022 for illegally controlling and embezzling funds from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a ten-year period following a merger deal in 2011. The court sentenced 67-year-old Lan to pay nearly the entire amount of damages as compensation.

Prosecutors reported

that over three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4 billion, in cash from the bank and store it in her basement. That volume of cash, even if it was all in the largest denominations of Vietnamese currency bills, would weigh two tons.

One of the 42,000 victims identified by authorities in this scandal said that many worked hard to deposit money in the bank, and now she has received a death sentence. According to human rights advocates, Vietnam is a global leader in issuing and carrying out death sentences, although exact figures on this matter are considered a state secret.

Amnesty International

A group that opposes the death penalty in all cases reported that in 2022, at least 102 death sentences were handed down in Vietnam, and more than 1,200 people were awaiting execution.