Vietnamese real estate tycoon sentenced to life for billions in fraud in government graft crackdown

abcnews.go.com:

A Vietnamese real estate tycoon has been convicted of fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars and sentenced to life in prison in a case that has been a centerpiece of the government’s crackdown on corruption

HANOI, Vietnam — A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was convicted Thursday of fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars and sentenced to life in prison, in a case that has been a centerpiece of the government's crackdown on corruption.

Truong My Lan was already convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City court of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country's gross domestic product — in a separate case and sentenced to death by lethal injection.

The trials were broken into two parts due to the number of allegations against her, and Thursday's verdict adds to Lan's legal troubles as she awaits the appeal of her death sentence to be heard.

Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences in the past decade and executed more than 400 prisoners. It is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes but is generally only applied in cases of murder and drug trafficking.

“Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” the VNexpress online newspaper quoted Lan, the chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat, as telling the judges in her closing statement last week.

“For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions have affected tens of thousands of families.”

Nguyen Hieu, a schoolteacher whose life savings of $36,000 is tied up in illegal bonds issued by Lan's company, said the life sentence was fair.

“She deserves the punishment,” he said, adding that he hoped the death sentence from the