Property tycoon Truong My Lan seen at the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City in September 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran
Property developer Truong My Lan told a court Thursday that the US$4.5 billion she transferred to other countries and received back belonged to her and not Saigon Commercial Bank.
Between 2012 and 2022 she received $3 billion in loans from friends overseas and sent $1.5 billion to repay them, the chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat told the People’s Court of HCMC.
Lan, who is being tried for illegal trans-border movement of money among other crimes, said her creditors insisted that the money they lent should be received through legal entities in Vietnam.
She therefore used SCB to send and receive the money, she said.
Lan said she does not know the technical process of transferring money, but assured that the State Bank of Vietnam’s anti-money laundering unit had been kept in the loop.
She denied instructing her accomplices to move money overseas, and sought clemency for them saying she would take responsibility for the transfers.
Her company, Van Thinh Phat, was not involved in this either, she claimed.
But her claim that the money belonged to her contradicts that of some of her accomplices.
Truong Khanh Hoang, SCB’s CEO at the time, said the money moved to other countries had come from “embezzling” the bank.
Hoang is accused of helping Lan send and receive VND68 trillion from abroad. But oddly he has claimed he did not know cross-border transactions were illegal as has his predecessor Vo Tan Hoang Van, who helped move VND11 trillion.
Lan is facing charges of fraudulent appropriation of assets through the issuance of bonds and illegal trans-border movement of money.
Earlier this year she was sentenced to death for embezzling money from SCB between 2012 and 2022.
The court also found her guilty of bribery and violating banking regulations.
She has appealed the death sentence.
