Vietnam tycoon on death row has life sentence reduced in separate case
Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan has had her life sentence for financial fraud and money laundering reduced to 30 years on appeal, in part due to the recovery of stolen funds, state media outlets reported on April 21.
Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, still faces execution, however, after being sentenced to death in another case last year for her role in a $12 billion fraud case, Vietnam’s largest on record. She lost her appeal in that case in December.
The Dan Tri newspaper said that in her appeal in the second case on Monday, the jury found Lan had many mitigating circumstances and had shown repentance, so the court reduced the life sentence to a fixed jail term.
“The court determined that the amount of money recovered and expected to be recovered was very large,” the report said
Lan’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lan was found guilty in October of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers.
She was accused of illegally transferring $4.5 billion into and out of Vietnam and laundering 445 trillion dong ($18.1 billion), while her companies were accused of illegally raising over 30 trillion dong ($1.2 billion) from issuing bonds to investors.
