Vietnamese tycoon Truong My Lan on death row over the world’s biggest bank fraud

Property tycoon Truong My Lan has been found guilty of a corruption scandal that dwarfs Malaysia’s 1MDB fraud and Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto scam

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan (C) looks on at a court in Ho Chi Minh city
(Image credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

When Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death in April for masterminding what is claimed to be the world’s biggest bank fraud, the verdict sent shockwaves through the country. Having lost her appeal this month, the 68-year-old is now in a race against time, says the BBC.

Under Vietnamese law, Lan could get her sentence commuted to life imprisonment if she can raise 75% of the $12 billion she’s convicted of embezzling from the Saigon Commercial Bank to repay victims. She urgently needs $9 billion – an eye-watering sum to raise, and with many of her assets frozen, she may have to call upon friends. She’ll soon find out if any are willing to stand by her.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.