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In April 2024, a Vietnamese court handed down a death sentence to businesswoman Truong My Lan in what became the country's — and possibly Southeast Asia's — largest-ever financial fraud case.

- BOB HERRERA-LIM

As head of the Vạn Thịnh Phát conglomerate, Lan secretly concealed her stake in the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which was then Vietnam's fifth-largest bank. Beginning in the early 2010s, she embezzled an estimated $12 billion in loans using fake documents, shell companies, and her control over key executives.

When the scheme unraveled in 2022, it triggered a bank run that forced the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to mount a $24-billion bailout to prevent wider financial collapse. The fallout led to the conviction of 85 defendants, from Lan's niece to SBV officials tasked with supervision and inspection of the banking system. Her death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, in line with Vietnam's treaty commitments on sentencing standards.

Though Lan's crimes were rooted in the private sector, the scale of the bailout and the near collapse of a major bank rattled Vietnam's political and financial establishment. For Communist Party leaders, it brought back memories of the late 2000s, when state-owned enterprises squandered billions in stimulus funds and loans undermining both economic stability and threatening systemic collapse.