A high court in Vietnam on Tuesday (December 30) upheld the death sentence for 68-year-old real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after junking her appeal for a reversal of her conviction for a $12 billion embezzlement and bribery.

Lan is left with no other recourse to avoid execution but to raise $9 billion for a commutation of her sentence.

Lan, chairperson of the real-estate developer Van Thinh Phat Group, has been found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violation of banking rules. She was sentenced to death.
Magistrates of the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City rejected her appeal. They pointed out that there were unable to find mmitigating circumstances to reduce her sentence.

However, they agreed that the death sentence may be commuted to life imprisonment if she could return approximately $9 billion or three-quarters of the amount she embezzled,

Lan, was arrested in 2022 and sentenced to death in April, 2024.

Reports said Lan had been accused of illegally controlling Saigon Commercial Bank and using shell companies to secure more than 2,500 loans for herself and her cohorts.

After her conviction, Lan immediately appealed for clemency stressing that her life is “too expensive a price” to pay for her crimes.

The case has been described as the biggest financial fraud on record in Vietnam.

Lan was among the top business executives and state officials jailed by Vietnam authorities that has been pushing a serious anti-graft campaign known as “Blazing Furnace.”

“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecuting team said in a statement issued to the state-run online news website VietnamNet.

The prosecutors added: “The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.”