Vietnam tycoon on death row gets life in prison in a separate trial

“LOSING MY MIND”

About 36,000 people who purchased bonds issued by SCB have been identified as victims of the fraud.

Online noodle seller Nguyen Thi Huong told AFP she wanted to die after losing $20,000, her entire savings, by investing in a bond in 2022.

“When I heard that I had lost all the money I deposited in SCB Bank, I felt like I was going crazy,” Huong, 33, said.

She developed insomnia, her health deteriorated due to stress and she ran out of money to send her children to extra classes, causing them to fall behind their peers, she said.

“I sat at my father’s grave and wished he would take me with him in death,” Huong said.

State media previously reported that Lan and her associates stole about $18 billion by taking assets from SCB between early 2018 and October 2022. Lan effectively owned a 90 percent stake in the bank.

Lan, chairman of major real estate developer Van Thinh Phat, ordered her accomplices to withdraw cash and withdraw it from the SCB’s system, state media said.

She then hid the origin of the money and used it to settle debts between companies or to transfer the money abroad for fake contracts.

Dozens of victims in the case held protests in central Hanoi as her latest trial began, demanding authorities help them get their money back.

Lan apologized to the victims in court and said she was “not a bad person”, according to state media.

She was sentenced to death in April after being found guilty of embezzling $12.5 billion – a verdict she is appealing, although no date has yet been announced.

Prosecutors said the total damage caused amounted to $27 billion – a figure equivalent to about six percent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product in 2023.