Truong My Lan back in court, this time for $1.2B bond fraud

She was brought to the court room at around 7:45 a.m. and will be tried along with 33 individuals, including her niece Truong Hue Van and husband Eric Chu.

Nearly 100 lawyers will defend the accused, including four for Lan, and 530 individuals have been summoned for their involvement in the cases.

Around 1,000 seats have been arranged outside the court room for the people involved to watch the proceedings.

The court has said the bond investors do not need to attend due to their large number. Nevertheless, some of them showed up and requested to attend.

Lan is accused of masterminding a plan to issue 24 bond tranches through four companies to raise VND30.87 trillion. They were bought by 35,824 investors.

She did not use the money for the intended purposes and failed to repay most of the investors. The four companies owe VND30 trillion in principal on the bonds.

Lan allegedly tasked Nguyen Phuong Hong, the deceased former deputy CEO of SCB, with managing the proceeds of the issuances.

Most of it was used to repay loans owed by individuals and companies belonging to property developer Van Thinh Phat, Lan’s company. Some of it was also used for personal expenses by Lan and her family.

She and her accomplices also face charges of illegally transporting $4.5 billion in cash in and out of Vietnam and laundering VND445.75 trillion they raised by issuing the bonds.

This is the second phase of an investigation against her. Earlier she was sentenced to death for embezzling money from SCB between 2012 and 2022.

She and her accomplices owed VND677 trillion to the bank they had obtained through 1,300 different loans.

The court also found her guilty of bribery and violating banking regulations. She has appealed the death sentence.