A key figure in Vietnam's largest, multi-billion-dollar financial fraud, Lan was sentenced to death for embezzlement, bribery, and violations of banking regulations on 11 April 2024.
[1] In October 2022, she was arrested for using fake loan applications to embezzle more than US$12.5 billion from Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank, which she controlled through more than two dozen middlemen.
[6] In 1992,[7] she founded and chaired the board of directors of Vạn Thịnh Phát Group [vi] (Chinese: 萬盛發集團), a real estate firm for luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels, and shopping centers[8] and also financial services.
[10] She was accused of illegally issuing bonds worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars in 2018 and 2019[10] and using 916 fake loan applications to appropriate more than 304 trillion dong (US$12.5 billion) from Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank,[2] of which she owned more than 90 percent of the shares, from 9 February 2018 to 7 October 2022.
[10] The arrest and trial were considered part of the anti-corruption policy of leader Nguyễn Phú Trọng, who described it as a "blazing furnace" (đốt lò).
[11] On 19 September 2024, state media reported that a second trial had begun in which Lan and 33 other defendants were accused of money laundering and selling illegal bonds.
[18] Her lawyer, Nguyen Huy Thiep, claims that Truong's assets exceed the compensation amount, but selling them, especially real estate, requires time.
[19] Lan is married to Eric Chu Nap Kee (Chinese: 朱立基), a businessman in the real estate sector in Hong Kong.