The death sentence is an unusually severe punishment in such a case.
The arrests came as part of a national corruption crackdown under Communist Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
Lan appeared to say in final remarks to the court last week that she had thoughts of suicide.
“In my desperation, I thought of death,” she said, according to state media.
“I am so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment – the banking sector – which I have little knowledge of.”
A family member told Reuters before the verdict was issued that Lan would appeal the sentence. Her lawyers were not immediately available for comment.Â
PROTESTS
After Lan’s arrest in October 2022, hundreds of people began to stage protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare occurrence in the one-party communist state.
Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the Southeast Asian country.
Lan, who is married to a wealthy Hong Kong businessman also on trial, was accused of setting up fake loan applications to withdraw money from SCB, in which she owned a 90 per cent stake.
Police say the scam victims are all SCB bondholders who cannot withdraw their money and have not received interest or principal payments since Lan’s arrest.
Prosecutors said during the trial they had seized more than 1,000 properties belonging to Lan.
Authorities have also said the US$5.2 million allegedly given by Lan and some SCB bankers to state officials to conceal the bank’s violations and poor financial situation was the largest bribe ever recorded in Vietnam.
The woman who was offered the bribe – Do Thi Nhan, the former head of the State Bank of Vietnam’s inspection team – said during the trial that the cash was handed to her in styrofoam boxes by the former CEO of SCB, Vo Tan Van.
After realising they contained money, Nhan refused the boxes but Van declined to take them back, state media reported.
More than 4,400 people have been indicted during Vietnam’s corruption crackdown, across more than 1,700 graft cases, since 2021.
A top Vietnamese luxury property tycoon – Do Anh Dung, head of the Tan Hoang Minh group – was sentenced to eight years in prison last month after he was found guilty of cheating thousands of investors in a US$355 million bond scam.
At one point in 2022, Vietnamese stocks suffered a US$40 billion wipeout following a series of big corporate arrests, rattling investor confidence at a delicate moment for the fast-growing economy.
Source: CNA
