The details of this are just wild: According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.
That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.
Why is it that every site with a similar headline is reporting a different amount of billions? Wonder if they are all converting it differently and then using the wrong countries units or something.
I'm not against the death penalty, in principle, but applying it risks both the moral and, slightly more more important, the judicial legitimacy of the system. Therefore, if it is to be considered and applied then moral care and sound judicial logic are paramount. Whatever the amount of stolen money, currency theft on its own it will never rise to the objective moral and logical base-level required to apply the death penalty. If the governments of developing nations want to be seen as other than basketcases, they need to be more judicious than this.
HN here delivers again. I’m voraciously consuming all this commentary. It’s very fascinating. I’m learning things I never knew about Vietnam. Props to Alephnerd and others for such intensely interesting commentary.
I've travelled to Vietnam a lot over the past couple years for work and my SO's family, and there is a lot of rot in the VN economy that has finally caught up to it.
Most of the growth could be attributed to Korean, Japanese, and Chinese conglomerates spending a LOT of money moving factories from China to VN in the 2014-22 period after China started trade wars with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US.
While this lead to massive capital expenditures, the average Vietnamese person's life didn't change too drastically, as most of the investments were located in Hanoi (Chinese) or HCMC (Korean+Japanese) and only captured by the capital owning class. While there are more FMCGs and brands now, almost everything has a luxury tax on it or is imported from the US, Thailand, or South Korea, and even Temu quality clothes cost as much as they would in the US, and furthermore - rent is insanely high in HCMC and Hanoi, so 50-60% of your income is spent on rent alone.
Furthermore, party apparatchiks decided to maximize the graft they could partake in by investing heavily in boondoggle hotel and apartment projects (similar to the Ghost cities you see in China and India).
When the COVID pandemic happened, the gravy train ended.
Vietnam followed a zero-covid policy that caused migrant workers to return to their hometowns, and there was a massive corruption scandal around COVID testing infrastructure and repatriating Vietnamese migrant workers from abroad.
This was also around the time an internal conflict began brewing between the Northern VCP (supported by the VinGroup billionaire who is also from Vietnamese Military royalty), Southern VCP (supported by this billionaire), the Army (they own Vietnam's largest telco and most of the PSUs), and the Ministry of Public Security (they have the dirt on everybody and are the actual enforcers in Vietnam).
Basically, the MPS backed the Northern faction and won this round, and the Army stayed out of this fight in order to keep making money.
That said, all this upper level turmoil (under the guise of a corruption purge) dented investor confidence recently, along with some very prominent infrastructure collapses like the power outages and the internet slowdowns.
For example, this past Tet people didn't spend as much on fireworks or red money compared to the 2023 Tet, real estate projects have started slowing down, and it's not uncommon to see abandoned construction projects once you leave HCMC or Hanoi.
If you're part of the expat Bui Vien/D1/Thao Dien scene you wouldn't notice this kind of stuff (they're too busy huffing balloons/nitrous despite it being banned in VN leaving surgeons to physically restrain patients), but once you go to "real" Saigon (eg. D10, D8) let alone outside of HCMC/Hanoi/DaNang/DaLat these issues become very prominent.
lot to unpack here but what i been told by my vietnamese coworkers is that this is "vietnamese pig butchering" (not like the one you hear about involving Tether).
They let fraudsters (pigs) accumulate capital by any means. Then they butcher it for political and financial capital. Government looks like a hero and they are able to keep the lights on.
In China, this has been going on for a while (ex. evergrande, HNA, Silicon Valley Bank, Tether) and online sleuths have uncovered crypto projects/funding from China are also another "western pig butchering".
SBF, Do Kwon are similar to Truong My Lan in that they are also "useful pigs" with many smaller "pigs" below them pulling capital into a "jurisdiction tor network". Some pigs are on the spectrum and do not require greed as motivation, simply the fame and recognition from having created "something" for other pigs is enough.
Most of the above are not true, or just outright conspiracies.
- There is no clear separation of North and South. Samsung, BYD, Apple etc all have factories in the North. These factories are labor-hungry and workers get better wages than let's say Nike's factories. Btw Nike has 155 factories all across Vietnam.
- Ms Lan & SCB case isn't that uncommon in Vietnam. It happened in the past with other banks at a smaller scale. Regulations for financial institutions are not strong here. Rich bank owners use bank as a facade to collect money from a lot of people to invest in usually real estate development projects. All is good until the market crashes and people find it hard to withdraw money. It's when state banks come in to take over, together with investigations. It happened to Ocean Bank, Phuong Nam Bank and others.
- The economy is bad right now. Vietnam economy is quite integrated to the global economy, and as factory country, it relies on mass orders from richer countries. When the West stop spending, people here lose their jobs.
- Real estate market bubble bursted last year. Many top developers are going under, including Van Thinh Phat (Ms Lan's company), Novaland, and potentially VinGroup if they don't course-correct it.
- War on corruption is real. 2 presidents (one of the four most important figures of the Pary) had to step down in the last couple of years . Several ministers, vice prime ministers, several Generals, and other members of the Pulitburo stepped down in the last several years as well.
Btw I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm not a member of the Communist Party :)
It's a system flaw which allows certain people to come into possession of such large amounts of money to begin with.
Ayn Rand said that when those who are receiving most of the money are dealing in favors instead of goods and services, that's when you know your society is declining.
The reason that billionaires and celebrities are monopolizing most of the money is because the monetary system has made the entire global economy about social connections. Although many people have the skills necessary to invest money efficiently in a just monetary system, because we don't have such a system, that skill is worthless and instead, in the current system, the money MUST go to politically connected people in order to get a return. The pool of politically-connected individuals is tiny as politicians can only deal with a limited number of individuals and cater to the needs of a limited number of corporations. That's why we have such extreme centralization and fragility.
>> Ayn Rand said that when those who are receiving most of the money are dealing in favors instead of goods and services, that's when you know your society is declining.
She said that in 1957. So your argument is that society has been declining since 1957. And I have to admit that I find that argument rather hard to believe.
Society has, to me, obviously not been declining since 1957. It has been declining since 1959 (the year Buddy Holly died).
Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
Then I read there are a few countries that impose capital punishment for non-violent crimes: China, Indonesia (some acts of corruption which "damage national economy or finances"), Morocco, Thailand (bribery), Vietnam (bribery).
I kind of see it as the opposite of barbaric. Someone stealing billions of dollars has caused far far far more net harm than someone committing a one off violent crime. I guess roughly tying consequences to harm caused seems less barbaric to me
> Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
I find this a 'curious' pov. If financial fraud is affecting savings of many thousands of people, where savings = lifetime spent toiling, a view one may dare take is that there is little difference in killing someone (essentially robbing them of the leftover lifetime).
In a country like Vietnam, where about 13% of people pay into pensions at all [1], loosing your savings literally will shorten your life. Even if you're in those 13% btw, as you can't live off state-pensions[2].
You’re leaving out a lot of countries that impose death penalties for non-violent acts that are victimless and not even crimes in the West.
For example adultery and apostasy:
“The following countries impose the death penalty for adultery: Afghanistan, Brunei,[1] Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan[citation needed], Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Qatar.”
”As of July 2020, apostasy by Muslims (ridda) carries the death penalty in the following countries: Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, the Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (implicitly), the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.”
This is the height of state-sanctioned barbarism left in today’s world.
I don’t know the specific of this case or what they do in East and South-East Asia. But we’ve had these discussions before. The point then is raised: say you have a white collar crime that downstream causes life-crippling financial misery for tens of thousands of people. On what grounds can one dismiss capital punishment for that crime as barbaric but then (presumably, by omission) not find that capital punishment for cold-blooded murder is barbaric?
Quite a few in that part of the world impose it for international drug smuggling, and we're talking mules rather than kingpins here. And if you really want to be appalled, look at the ones where adultery or homosexuality are potentially capital crimes.
I don’t know whether it’s warranted but corruption is the primary reasons a lot of these third world countries have such a hard time pulling themselves out of the hole. The damage they cause to millions of lives is probably way more impactful than some two bit murderer.
Death penalty seems inherently barbaric as in practice you cannot avoid executing people who are not found to be innocent until years or decades later. Even if you think guilt can be proven beyond any doubt, I know of no jurisdiction with an error-free record.
> Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
Honestly, I think it's fine, but only if reserved for billionaires. That kind of economic power breeds arrogance, which needs something to keep it in check. The quantity has a quality all its own.
The death penalty is definitely not OK for low level people or the sums even a wealthy regular person could have. And I don't even think it should be an option for most violent crime, either.
Honestly, I think these are the varieties of crimes where capital punishment should apply - while a violent offender might be one day rehabilitated, someone who feels it’s ok to loot billions at the expense of their fellow man deserves to suffer schaphism.
The harm is infinitely greater - and we seemingly live in a world where this behaviour is more often than not rewarded with high office and plaudits.
According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement. The verdict requires her to return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered.
she stole around 2% of Vietnam's GDP annually.
You just can’t move this kind of money without the government noticing. She most likely fell out of favour for some other reason with the ruling party.
moreover, Viet Nam is a communist country. It may seem difficult for western capitalists to reconcile since "victimless" and "non-violent" are the litmus for most prosecutions but sentencing the bourgeoise to the death penalty for embezzlement is absolutely in keeping with the party line and doctrine. in 2008 the PRC had a tainted milk scandal, during which time it tried, sentenced, and executed two high level corporate executives for the fraud.
> Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
I think one can make an argument that death penalties themselves are barbaric given miscarriage of justice is a thing. And let's be honest, the electric chair is gruesome in the day and age of Nesdonal & Norcuron.
To single out captial punishment for a capitalist crime as barbarism reeks of double standards just because there's no precedent for it in the West.
I kept trying to figure out what does someone's Local Area Network have to do with this story, but after skimming the article I realized that "My LAN" is the name of the accused.
In my eastern EU country, following the fall of communism, a lot of fraudsters got wealthy over night by selling the state's(the people's) assets and pocketing the money themselves while the common people were wallowing in poverty worse than during communism.
Similarly, they all deserve the death sentence too but most of them haven't even served jail time.
[+] [-] nimzoLarsen|1 year ago|reply
That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.
[+] [-] Suppafly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] can16358p|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mrangle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] antoniuschan99|1 year ago|reply
https://youtu.be/GmAcpqZPrMQ?si=7JUYg7itjba_uGaN
https://youtu.be/KudcZvoP3C0?si=tF1DKfFoJmolGn5m
https://youtu.be/jv-j5AS3Fz0?si=lzRg0XhyNqtS3q9V
There’s other cases namely flc group
[+] [-] herunan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alephnerd|1 year ago|reply
Most of the growth could be attributed to Korean, Japanese, and Chinese conglomerates spending a LOT of money moving factories from China to VN in the 2014-22 period after China started trade wars with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US.
While this lead to massive capital expenditures, the average Vietnamese person's life didn't change too drastically, as most of the investments were located in Hanoi (Chinese) or HCMC (Korean+Japanese) and only captured by the capital owning class. While there are more FMCGs and brands now, almost everything has a luxury tax on it or is imported from the US, Thailand, or South Korea, and even Temu quality clothes cost as much as they would in the US, and furthermore - rent is insanely high in HCMC and Hanoi, so 50-60% of your income is spent on rent alone.
Furthermore, party apparatchiks decided to maximize the graft they could partake in by investing heavily in boondoggle hotel and apartment projects (similar to the Ghost cities you see in China and India).
When the COVID pandemic happened, the gravy train ended.
Vietnam followed a zero-covid policy that caused migrant workers to return to their hometowns, and there was a massive corruption scandal around COVID testing infrastructure and repatriating Vietnamese migrant workers from abroad.
This was also around the time an internal conflict began brewing between the Northern VCP (supported by the VinGroup billionaire who is also from Vietnamese Military royalty), Southern VCP (supported by this billionaire), the Army (they own Vietnam's largest telco and most of the PSUs), and the Ministry of Public Security (they have the dirt on everybody and are the actual enforcers in Vietnam).
Basically, the MPS backed the Northern faction and won this round, and the Army stayed out of this fight in order to keep making money.
That said, all this upper level turmoil (under the guise of a corruption purge) dented investor confidence recently, along with some very prominent infrastructure collapses like the power outages and the internet slowdowns.
For example, this past Tet people didn't spend as much on fireworks or red money compared to the 2023 Tet, real estate projects have started slowing down, and it's not uncommon to see abandoned construction projects once you leave HCMC or Hanoi.
If you're part of the expat Bui Vien/D1/Thao Dien scene you wouldn't notice this kind of stuff (they're too busy huffing balloons/nitrous despite it being banned in VN leaving surgeons to physically restrain patients), but once you go to "real" Saigon (eg. D10, D8) let alone outside of HCMC/Hanoi/DaNang/DaLat these issues become very prominent.
This is a fairly good overview of some of the changes I've (or moreso my SO) been noticing - https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/vietnam-the-purge
[+] [-] d3vmax|1 year ago|reply
"similar to the Ghost cities you see in China and India"
I don't think India has ghost cities in the way you mean.
[+] [-] spxneo|1 year ago|reply
They let fraudsters (pigs) accumulate capital by any means. Then they butcher it for political and financial capital. Government looks like a hero and they are able to keep the lights on.
In China, this has been going on for a while (ex. evergrande, HNA, Silicon Valley Bank, Tether) and online sleuths have uncovered crypto projects/funding from China are also another "western pig butchering".
SBF, Do Kwon are similar to Truong My Lan in that they are also "useful pigs" with many smaller "pigs" below them pulling capital into a "jurisdiction tor network". Some pigs are on the spectrum and do not require greed as motivation, simply the fame and recognition from having created "something" for other pigs is enough.
[+] [-] a92ea3f2|1 year ago|reply
- There is no clear separation of North and South. Samsung, BYD, Apple etc all have factories in the North. These factories are labor-hungry and workers get better wages than let's say Nike's factories. Btw Nike has 155 factories all across Vietnam.
- Ms Lan & SCB case isn't that uncommon in Vietnam. It happened in the past with other banks at a smaller scale. Regulations for financial institutions are not strong here. Rich bank owners use bank as a facade to collect money from a lot of people to invest in usually real estate development projects. All is good until the market crashes and people find it hard to withdraw money. It's when state banks come in to take over, together with investigations. It happened to Ocean Bank, Phuong Nam Bank and others.
- The economy is bad right now. Vietnam economy is quite integrated to the global economy, and as factory country, it relies on mass orders from richer countries. When the West stop spending, people here lose their jobs.
- Real estate market bubble bursted last year. Many top developers are going under, including Van Thinh Phat (Ms Lan's company), Novaland, and potentially VinGroup if they don't course-correct it.
- War on corruption is real. 2 presidents (one of the four most important figures of the Pary) had to step down in the last couple of years . Several ministers, vice prime ministers, several Generals, and other members of the Pulitburo stepped down in the last several years as well.
Btw I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm not a member of the Communist Party :)
[+] [-] twojobsoneboss|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] martinbaun|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jongjong|1 year ago|reply
Ayn Rand said that when those who are receiving most of the money are dealing in favors instead of goods and services, that's when you know your society is declining.
The reason that billionaires and celebrities are monopolizing most of the money is because the monetary system has made the entire global economy about social connections. Although many people have the skills necessary to invest money efficiently in a just monetary system, because we don't have such a system, that skill is worthless and instead, in the current system, the money MUST go to politically connected people in order to get a return. The pool of politically-connected individuals is tiny as politicians can only deal with a limited number of individuals and cater to the needs of a limited number of corporations. That's why we have such extreme centralization and fragility.
[+] [-] mistermann|1 year ago|reply
Lots of her ideas were indeed simplistic if not downright dumb, but not all of them.
[+] [-] rufus_foreman|1 year ago|reply
She said that in 1957. So your argument is that society has been declining since 1957. And I have to admit that I find that argument rather hard to believe.
Society has, to me, obviously not been declining since 1957. It has been declining since 1959 (the year Buddy Holly died).
[+] [-] grugagag|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] andsoitis|1 year ago|reply
Then I read there are a few countries that impose capital punishment for non-violent crimes: China, Indonesia (some acts of corruption which "damage national economy or finances"), Morocco, Thailand (bribery), Vietnam (bribery).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_non-vio...
[+] [-] snapcaster|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] virtualritz|1 year ago|reply
I find this a 'curious' pov. If financial fraud is affecting savings of many thousands of people, where savings = lifetime spent toiling, a view one may dare take is that there is little difference in killing someone (essentially robbing them of the leftover lifetime).
In a country like Vietnam, where about 13% of people pay into pensions at all [1], loosing your savings literally will shorten your life. Even if you're in those 13% btw, as you can't live off state-pensions[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_in_Vietnam#Funding
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_in_Vietnam#State_non-...
EDIT: I like to add that I am against death penalty under any circumstances.
But if you're in the US and are ok with death penalty there, I'd argue you should be, too, in the case at hand.
[+] [-] pavlov|1 year ago|reply
For example adultery and apostasy:
“The following countries impose the death penalty for adultery: Afghanistan, Brunei,[1] Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan[citation needed], Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Qatar.”
”As of July 2020, apostasy by Muslims (ridda) carries the death penalty in the following countries: Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, the Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (implicitly), the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.”
This is the height of state-sanctioned barbarism left in today’s world.
[+] [-] keybored|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wubrr|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] notahacker|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] spxneo|1 year ago|reply
Or is the exchange rate here not favourable to your standards?
[+] [-] huytersd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tromp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] shp0ngle|1 year ago|reply
On the other hand it's 21 billion.
Still rough.
[+] [-] squokko|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yeknoda|1 year ago|reply
1. Remove from society, with no additional cost to society. 2. Signaling to dissuade new offenders.
You can go one step further and punish the family, parents, and friends. Seems to be happening in the US for underage mass killers.
It’s a simple, effective, and low cost way to deal with crime of the highest magnitude. Why should it be off limits for corruption?
[+] [-] blago|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Saigonautica|1 year ago|reply
De jure, here's an amount that the guilty party can repay to avoid the death penalty. I recall it being 3/4 of the amount stolen.
[+] [-] tivert|1 year ago|reply
Honestly, I think it's fine, but only if reserved for billionaires. That kind of economic power breeds arrogance, which needs something to keep it in check. The quantity has a quality all its own.
The death penalty is definitely not OK for low level people or the sums even a wealthy regular person could have. And I don't even think it should be an option for most violent crime, either.
[+] [-] madaxe_again|1 year ago|reply
The harm is infinitely greater - and we seemingly live in a world where this behaviour is more often than not rewarded with high office and plaudits.
[+] [-] CatWChainsaw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nimbius|1 year ago|reply
she stole around 2% of Vietnam's GDP annually.
You just can’t move this kind of money without the government noticing. She most likely fell out of favour for some other reason with the ruling party.
moreover, Viet Nam is a communist country. It may seem difficult for western capitalists to reconcile since "victimless" and "non-violent" are the litmus for most prosecutions but sentencing the bourgeoise to the death penalty for embezzlement is absolutely in keeping with the party line and doctrine. in 2008 the PRC had a tainted milk scandal, during which time it tried, sentenced, and executed two high level corporate executives for the fraud.
[+] [-] kak3a|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoramous|1 year ago|reply
I think one can make an argument that death penalties themselves are barbaric given miscarriage of justice is a thing. And let's be honest, the electric chair is gruesome in the day and age of Nesdonal & Norcuron.
To single out captial punishment for a capitalist crime as barbarism reeks of double standards just because there's no precedent for it in the West.
[+] [-] speedylight|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|1 year ago|reply
Still huge, but not ~7% of GDP huge.
It was closer to ~0.5% of GDP per year for 11 years.
This is probably typical in countries without really strong institutions. Vietnam isn't exactly a 3rd world country...
The amount of fraud going on in 3rd world countries (as a % of GDP) is mind boggling.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Rinzler89|1 year ago|reply
In my eastern EU country, following the fall of communism, a lot of fraudsters got wealthy over night by selling the state's(the people's) assets and pocketing the money themselves while the common people were wallowing in poverty worse than during communism.
Similarly, they all deserve the death sentence too but most of them haven't even served jail time.
[+] [-] somberi|1 year ago|reply
"Lan's embezzlement of $12.5 billion equals about three percent of Vietnam's total GDP for 2022."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C6%B0%C6%A1ng_M%E1%BB%B9_La....
King Lear comes to mind:
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
[+] [-] shp0ngle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sickofparadox|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] adamnemecek|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bblcla|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|1 year ago|reply
One of the reasons is fear of this sort of thing.
Makes me wonder if the same problems will pop up in the new destinations.
[+] [-] kazinator|1 year ago|reply