HANOI: Vietnam has mounted a rescue of a bank tied to real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who was sentenced to death last week for her role in a US$12 billion fraud case, Reuters reported.
Without government assistance, Saigon Commercial Bank, also known as SCB, will collapse, Reuters reported, citing three bank documents and an unidentified person with access to the documents.
Representatives of Vietnam’s central bank did not immediately reply to requests for comment from Bloomberg News.
The State Bank of Vietnam had funnelled nearly $24 billion in "special loans” into SCB as of early April, according to one of the bank documents seen by Reuters.
The October 2022 arrest of Lan, 67, chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, led to a bank run on SCB. The central bank eventually took over the institution.
Lan’s lawyer Giang Hong Thanh said in March she did not intentionally violate the law or cause damage to the state or depositors. She was convicted April 11 of bribing government inspectors and embezzling more than $12 billion from SCB between Feb. 2018 and Oct. 2022 - a sum that surpasses the market capitalisation of most Vietnamese banks.
Prosecutors said she illegally controlled more than 90% of SCB by paying 27 individuals and entities to acquire stakes in the institution. - Bloomberg
