A Vietnamese property tycoon trying to avoid a death sentence for multibillion-dollar fraud has promised to turn her property empire into a “golden goose” to help pay back the assets she embezzled, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
Property developer Truong My Lan lost an appeal in December against the death penalty in a case in which she was found guilty of stealing money from Saigon Commercial Bank and fraud amounting to US$27 billion.
The appeal court ruled there was no basis to reduce her sentence but said she could still escape the death penalty if she paid back three-quarters of the amount stolen.
In a letter sent from jail to a state-controlled committee handling her properties, Lan said her assets have been significantly undervalued, causing potential losses to the state and affecting her rights, her lawyer Giang Hong Thanh said.
Lan said the government-appointed company that valued 726 of her assets, several of them real estate projects in prime areas of Vietnam’s biggest cities, had estimated their worth at around US$9.7 billion.