In a country that rarely sentences white-collar criminals to death, Truong My Lan’s case is not just an outlier—it is seismic. It has shaken the very foundations of Vietnam’s financial and political systems, brought a billion-dollar bank to the edge of collapse, and left behind the largest corruption scandal Southeast Asia has ever witnessed.
Lan was not born into this scale of influence. Her journey started in the narrow alleys of Saigon—now Ho Chi Minh City—among merchants and street vendors, with the scent of wet concrete and the chatter of the market forming the backdrop of her childhood. Her family, of Teochew Chinese descent, had settled in Saigon generations ago. They hailed from the village of Gezhou in Shantou, Guangdong, China, and had built a life for themselves in a district colloquially known as “Little Gezhou.”
Born on October 13, 1956, Lan grew up amid the cultural crosscurrents of Vietnam and China. Her early life was unremarkable—a girl from a Sino-Vietnamese family selling cosmetics with her mother in the city’s bustling markets. But hidden beneath that modest surface was a sharp instinct for money, power, and the subtle gears that made Saigon turn.
From Hairpins to High Rises
After the Communist government introduced economic reforms in 1986—an era known as Đổi Mới—Vietnam began opening itself to private enterprise. Truong My Lan saw the floodgates opening before many others did. She pivoted quickly from retail to real estate. In the post-war vacuum of a transitioning economy, state-owned land and distressed properties were plentiful. Lan began acquiring them methodically, piece by piece.
By 1992, she had enough clout and capital to found the Van Thinh Phat Group, a real estate empire that would come to dominate Ho Chi Minh City’s skyline. Her company became synonymous with high-end development—luxury residences, office towers, hotels, and commercial centers. She positioned herself not just as a business magnate but as a symbol of Vietnam’s economic transformation.
While many in the country were still recovering from years of war and austerity, Lan was entertaining foreign investors and walking through penthouse suites with million-dollar views. Her success, however, wasn’t fueled solely by business acumen. Government connections, covert deals, and undisclosed financial instruments laid the groundwork for what would later be unveiled as one of the most complex financial frauds in modern history.
The Saigon Commercial Bank Takeover
Lan’s real ascent into dangerous territory began with her quiet control of Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB)—a move that would ultimately seal her fate. In 2012, amid a brewing financial crisis, three Vietnamese banks teetered on the edge of collapse. Instead of allowing them to fail, the State Bank of Vietnam approved a merger, forming SCB.
What regulators did not grasp—or perhaps chose to overlook—was that Truong My Lan, through a complex network of middlemen, already had substantial influence over the newly formed SCB. She never officially held a managerial role at the bank, yet she wielded near-total authority from behind the curtain. More than 90% of SCB’s loan portfolio was eventually discovered to be linked to companies she owned or controlled through proxies and shell corporations.
Between 2012 and 2022, SCB became her private war chest. A place to launder money, move assets, and accumulate wealth on a scale previously unthinkable. As she expanded her empire outward—investing in projects across Vietnam, Hong Kong, and even China—she hollowed out the bank from within.
The $44 Billion Black Hole
Authorities would later accuse her of issuing 916 fake loan applications and using a network of more than two dozen shell companies to misappropriate vast sums from SCB. According to court documents, Lan embezzled approximately $12.5 billion, misappropriated another $27 billion, and over the span of more than ten years, controlled assets totaling $44 billion—a figure that stunned economists and prosecutors alike.
To put it into perspective, her embezzlement alone equated to three percent of Vietnam’s entire GDP in 2022.
Investigators eventually uncovered over 1,000 distinct assets tied to her fraudulent activity. These included luxury real estate in central Ho Chi Minh City, shares in companies, and off-shore investments routed through foreign entities. All of them are now frozen. And yet, even as prosecutors moved in, Lan reached out to wealthy friends and associates, trying to raise funds—desperate to cash in her frozen empire before the law caught up.
The “Blazing Furnace” of Anti-Corruption
Her arrest on October 6, 2022, sent shockwaves through Vietnam’s corporate elite. It was part of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign launched by Communist Party Secretary-General Nguyen Phu Trong, known as the “Blazing Furnace.” Lan’s downfall was to be its crown jewel.
But it came at a price.
Three SCB employees committed suicide in the week following her arrest—on October 6, 9, and 14—sparking a bank run as customers panicked, lining up outside SCB branches to withdraw their deposits. The State Bank of Vietnam was forced to inject billions to stabilize the financial system and calm the public.
The Trial of the Century
Her trial began on March 5, 2024, at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court. With 86 defendants, including her husband, her niece, and dozens of former SCB executives, it was the largest white-collar trial in Vietnamese history—and by some accounts, in all of Southeast Asia. The courtroom itself had to be retrofitted with extra security, digital projectors, and simultaneous interpretation for documents and testimonies.
Among the accused were:
Eric Chu Nap Kee, her husband, a Hong Kong real estate businessman
Truong Hue Van, her 34-year-old niece and the CEO of a property firm
45 former leaders of SCB
15 officials from the State Bank of Vietnam
3 Government Inspectorate officers
1 officer from the State Audit Office
Five SCB executives had already fled the country and were tried in absentia.
After 36 days of hearings, on April 11, 2024, Truong My Lan was sentenced to death—lethal injection—for embezzlement of $12.5 billion. Four other defendants received life sentences. The rest were handed prison terms ranging from three years (suspended) to twenty years.
Her husband received nine years, her niece seventeen. Her husband’s sentence was later reduced after appeal.
It was a rare and historic verdict, especially considering that very few women in Vietnam have ever been sentenced to death for financial crimes. Her legal team immediately filed an appeal.
The Second Trial: More Charges, More Time
Just months later, on September 19, 2024, a second trial commenced. This time, Lan and 33 additional defendants were charged with money laundering and the illegal sale of bonds. According to prosecutors, Lan had funneled $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam from 2012 to 2022, using 21 different companies under the Van Thinh Phat umbrella.
She was again convicted on October 17, 2024, and sentenced to life imprisonment on top of her existing death penalty. The court made it clear that these new charges did not override the earlier ruling—they simply underscored the depth of her criminal enterprise.
The Final Appeal—and the Race Against Death
Lan’s final appeal was heard in early December 2024. On December 3, the court upheld the death sentence, rejecting all grounds for clemency. However, under Vietnamese law, a glimmer of hope remained.
If Truong My Lan could repay 75% of the money she embezzled—roughly $9 billion—the court would commute her death sentence to life imprisonment. It was, quite literally, a race against the clock.
In her final address to the court, Lan was no longer defiant. Gone was the steely real estate tycoon who once spoke confidently of “market dynamics” and “strategic investment.” Instead, she was contrite, visibly worn.
She admitted shame. She begged for time. She called what had happened an “accident”—not an admission of guilt, but a plea for mercy.
Meanwhile, her husband, Eric Chu Nap Kee, did not file an appeal. But he quietly repaid the $1.2 million he was convicted of laundering. In return, his sentence was halved—from two years to one.
A Dynasty Unraveled
The Truong family was once considered one of the wealthiest in Vietnam, with philanthropic projects scattered across their ancestral home in China. Their daughter, Elizabeth Chu, born in 1994, had remained largely out of the public eye but was reportedly running restaurants in Hong Kong. Now, the family’s entire fortune has been frozen, pending asset recovery and liquidation.
Lan’s niece, Truong Hue Van, admitted during the trial that she helped establish 52 shell companies and four legitimate firms to obtain 155 separate loans from SCB. She had lived with Lan since childhood and was considered her protégé. Her confession was as much an indictment of Lan’s inner circle as it was of the institutional rot at the heart of the Vietnamese banking system.
Legacy of a Billion-Dollar Collapse
The scale of Lan’s crimes dwarfs the infamous 1MDB scandal of Malaysia, which involved about €4.1 billion. Her empire was not only larger but more deeply entangled with state officials, regulators, and bank managers. She built her financial kingdom on illusions—and when it collapsed, it exposed gaping holes in Vietnam’s regulatory framework.
The total cost to the Vietnamese state remains incalculable. Billions have been lost. Investor confidence has taken a hit. The trust of ordinary citizens—many of whom watched the scandal unfold on nightly news—has been deeply shaken.
The Woman, the Machine, the Sentence
Today, Truong My Lan sits in a prison cell, awaiting the next development in a case that has captivated, horrified, and humbled a nation. She is no longer the queen of Saigon real estate. No longer the untouchable billionaire who could walk through ministries like they were shopping malls.
She is inmate #456, sentenced to die by lethal injection.
And yet, the door remains open. $9 billion is the price of her life—a sum that even now, with all her properties frozen and her reputation shattered, she is desperately trying to gather.
In Vietnam, people still whisper about her story. In markets, on buses, in hushed conversations over tea. Not just because of the money—but because she represents a system that allowed such vast corruption to take root, grow unchecked, and nearly bring a nation’s economy to its knees.
Her downfall may be complete. But the questions she leaves behind are far from answered.
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