Vạn Thịnh Phát fraud case

Vạn Thịnh Phát, under the leadership of billionaire Trương Mỹ Lan for over 10 years, defrauded Sai Gon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB).

The Vạn Thịnh Phát scandal was explosed during the anti-corruption Blazing Furnace campaign initiated by General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

Before becoming the owner of a major corporation in Vietnam, she sold cosmetics at Ben Thanh Market, Ho Chi Minh City, with financial support from her mother.

Together, they founded Vạn Thịnh Phát Group, initially focusing on trade and business, restaurants, and hotels in the aftermath of the Đổi Mới reforms.

At the same time, Vạn Thịnh Phát became one of the wealthiest real estate companies in Vietnam with a series of projects including high-end residential buildings, offices, hotels, and shopping centers.

[11] In 2016, the Communist Party of Vietnam began implementing the anti-corruption campaign known as the "Burning Furnace", initiated by General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

[10] The Burning Furnace campaign led to the resignation of many senior government officials, including Vietnamese Presidents Nguyễn Xuân Phúc and Võ Văn Thưởng,[11][13] and started thousands of prosecutions.

[15] Similarly, in April, the chairman of Tân Hiệp Phát Group, Vietnam's largest private beverage producer, Trần Quý Thanh, was also arrested for embezzlement.

[17] In 1992, Trương Mỹ Lan and her husband Chu Lập Cơ founded Vạn Thịnh Phát Limited Liability Company, operating in the fields of commerce and business, restaurants, and hotels.

[18] At the end of 2019, Vạn Thịnh Phát Group increased its charter capital to 13,000 billion VND through issuing shares to domestic shareholders.

[25] Through the above method, from 2012 to 2022, Trương Mỹ Lan disbursed many fictitious or legally insufficient loans totaling more than 1 million billion VND from SCB Bank.

The cross-border money transfer operations were assigned by Mrs. Lan to Trịnh Quang Công, Nguyễn Phương Anh, and Chiu Bing Keung Kenneth.

[36] Over a month later, during a meeting of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and Negative Phenomena, General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng requested a focus on inspection, supervision, auditing, investigation, and handling of corruption and economic cases, including Vạn Thịnh Phát.

[39] Published in Nhân Dân newspaper, including many corruption and economic cases, the Ministry of Justice has recovered assets worth up to 10 trillion VND.

[40] On April 12, 2024, during a discussion involving the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam, the economic police force announced that they had recovered approximately 394.4 trillion VND from the Vạn Thịnh Phát case.

[43] According to the Sài Gòn Giải Phóng newspaper, the second phase of the case highlighted numerous legal loopholes and deficiencies in Vietnam's management of securities, finance, and banking.

He mentioned that "an investigation into sand mining activities is underway," and the Vietnamese police are also scrutinizing the renewable energy sector and the Vietnam Electricity Corporation.

[46] Le Hong Hiep from the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore stated that the Communist Party of Vietnam aims to influence the free business culture in the South, as by the end of 2016, Hanoi had almost allowed Vietnamese-Chinese mafia forces to run the southern economy.

[49] Commenting on the verdict handed down by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court to Trương Mỹ Lan, The Guardian stated that it was a severe and unusual sentence for a corruption case.

[53] According to Time magazine, Lê Thanh Hải, former Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, and Lê Hoàng Quân, former Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, may be involved in the case after both were disciplined and dismissed by the Central Inspection Commission in March 2020 for violations related to the Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area.