Truong My Lan’s appeal has been received by the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court.
Previously, on April 11, VTC News reported that the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendant Truong My Lan to 20 years in prison for bribery, 20 years in prison for violating regulations on banking operations and death. Crime of property embezzlement. General penalty is death.
The jury said that there was enough basis to determine that the defendants were guilty of the crimes as charged in the indictment. Defendant Lan and his accomplices caused serious consequences and great damage to SCB. Since then, this bank has fallen into a state of illiquidity, causing confusion among the people, affecting the reputation of the Party and State…
The actions of the 86 defendants were organized, in which defendant Truong My Lan was the mastermind, leader, and director of the crime. From there, it is confirmed that there must be the harshest sentence for Truong My Lan.
Defendant Truong My Lan at the first instance trial.
The jury judged that, based on documents and testimony of other defendants at the trial, defendant Lan was the actual owner and controlled more than 91.5% of SCB shares, and was actually a powerful person. Absolutely direct and manage all activities of SCB; Select and arrange key personnel at SCB.
According to the jury, before merging SCB Bank, Truong My Lan purchased shares of three banks: SCB Bank, Vietnam Tin Nghia Bank and De Nhat Bank. When the State Bank allowed the merger, defendant Lan took advantage of the bank’s restructuring policy to acquire a large number of shares of SCB Bank after the merger.
As of October 2022, defendant Lan holds about 91.5% of SCB Bank shares. According to the jury, during the investigation process, those who owned more than 75% of the shares at SCB all admitted to holding Truong My Lan’s name.
Also according to the jury, SCB is a joint stock commercial bank. According to the provisions of the enterprise law and the law on credit institutions, decisions on the bank’s issues must be approved by more than 65% of shareholders through the general meeting. shareholders.
As for the 5 foreign shareholders, during the investigation, Ms. Lan declared that she had received shares transferred from these 5 shareholders. At the trial, Ms. Lan changed her testimony, but in reality foreign shareholders had not participated in the general meeting of shareholders for a long time, so the defense lawyers said that Ms. Lan and her family only held about 15%. SCB shares have no basis to accept.
Therefore, by holding over 91.5% of shares at SCB, Truong My Lan actually dominates and essentially runs all operations at SCB. Therefore, defendant Lan is the subject of the crime of embezzlement of property, thereby not accepting the defense lawyers’ point of view that defendant Lan does not constitute the crime of embezzlement of property.
Taking advantage of her role as a large and powerful shareholder, holding practically an absolute number of shares of SCB Bank, Ms. Truong My Lan conveyed her will to defendants Dinh Van Thanh, Bui Anh Dung, Vo Tan Hoang Van, Ta Chieu Trung, Truong Khanh Hoang, and Tran Thi My Dung withdrew money from SCB to appropriate a large amount of money from the bank for personal use.
In 10 years, from 2012 to 2022, SCB disbursed more than 2,500 loans to the group of defendants Truong My Lan with a total amount of more than 1 million billion VND, accounting for 93% of the bank’s loan amount.
By 2022, defendant Lan’s group still has 1,284 loans, outstanding debt at SCB is more than 677,000 billion VND (nearly 484,000 billion VND outstanding principal, more than 193,000 billion in interest), in the group that cannot be recovered.
According to the jury, these defendants committed crimes over a long period of time, while the Penal Code had a fundamental change in handling before and after January 1, 2018, but not yet. handling the crime of property embezzlement for non-state enterprises, so the People’s Procuracy prosecuted the defendant for 2 crimes in 2 periods before and after January 1, 2018, which is appropriate.
This is also an argument for the jury not to accept the defense lawyer’s point of view that the handling of two crimes against defendant Lan is disadvantageous to the defendant.
Specifically, Truong My Lan’s actions during the period from January 1, 2012 – December 31, 2017 committed the crime of violating regulations on lending in the activities of credit institutions according to Clause 3, Article 179 of the Code. Criminal case in 1999.
Ms. Lan directed the creation of false and valid loan documents for 304 customers with 368 loans, with a total outstanding balance of more than 132,000 billion VND. Applying the principle in favor of the defendant, it is determined that Truong My Lan’s criminal act caused damage to SCB of more than 64,600 billion VND, after deducting the value of collateral assets of loans of over 67,600 billion VND.
During the period from January 1, 2018 – October 7, 2022, Truong My Lan directed the creation of 916 false loan applications to withdraw and appropriate SCB’s money. As of October 17, 2023, these loans have outstanding principal of more than 415,600 billion VND, outstanding interest of more than 129,300 billion VND.
During this period, defendant Truong My Lan and related accomplices committed the crime of Property Embezzlement according to the provisions of Points a and b, Clause 4, Article 353 of the 2015 Penal Code.
Applying the principle in favor of defendant Lan, after deducting the value of collateral for the loans, it is determined that Truong My Lan has appropriated more than 304,000 billion VND of outstanding principal, and caused damage of more than 129,000 billion VND, which is Interest arising from the principal amount appropriated above.
