Truong My Lan, a Vietnamese property tycoon who was sentenced to death in a US$27 billion fraud case, has been accused of new charges related to appropriating assets, money laundering, and illegal cross-border money transport.

Following the second phase of an investigation into Lan’s wrongdoings, investigators from the Ministry of Public Security on Thursday proposed filing new charges against Lan, founder and chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, and 33 others.

The investigation concluded that Lan and her accomplices issued 25 bond packages in order to appropriate more than VND30 trillion (US$1.2 billion) from over 35,000 investors.

The bond packages were issued through four companies, including An Dong Investment Group Corporation, Quang Thuan Investment Corporation, Sunny World Investment and Development Corporation, and Ho Chi Minh City Commerce Service Corporation.

Investigators also found that Lan was the mastermind behind the laundering of over VND445 trillion ($17.5 billion), including VND415 trillion ($16.3 billion) embezzled from lender Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and VND30 trillion ($1.2 billion) from defrauding bond investors.

Lan and her accomplices were charged with illegally transporting $4.5 billion across the border between October 2012 and October 2022.

In particular, 21 subsidiaries of Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group conducted illegal transactions to transfer some $1.5 billion to other countries and received $3 billion from abroad.

The transactions were all made through fictitious contracts on share trade, capital contribution, consulting services, and borrowing loans between these companies and foreign entities.

In April, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court handed down the death penalty on Lan for leading a scam that caused damages of $27 billion – a figure equivalent to six percent of Vietnam's 2023 GDP – to SCB. It was then considered one of the biggest corruption cases in history.

According to the court, Lan used other people’s names to acquire 91.5 percent of the shares in SCB and direct senior leaders of the bank and Van Thinh Phat to withdraw over VND1,066 trillion ($43.8 billion) from the lender between 2012 and 2022.

She and her accomplices also gave $5.2 million to Do Thi Nhan, former chief of the Inspectorate and Supervision Department II under the State Bank of Vietnam, so that Nhan helped conceal the bank's violations and poor financial situation. This was the largest-ever bribe recorded in Vietnam.

Police have so far identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal.

Lan later appealed the sentence.

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