How Truong My Lan moved $20B across borders undetected

She moved the money out through 85 companies and received it through 63 over a total of 313,700 transactions carried out by the Saigon Commercial Bank, prosecutors told the People's Court of HCMC Thursday.

Before Lan’s arrest, her companies were not on the State Bank of Vietnam’s radar for violating money laundering or terrorism funding regulations, and therefore were not placed in a black list by its anti-money laundering department, they explained.

Another entity under the central bank, the foreign exchange management department, is not tasked with monitoring and inspecting companies and individuals, they said.

It operates based on data provided by banks and did not detect any anomaly in the SCB’s cross-border transactions, they said.

They added they therefore have no legal bases to blame the two departments for the actions of Lan’s companies and the SCB in this regard.

Lan faces three charges: fraudulent appropriation of assets (through the issuance of bonds), money laundering and illegal trans-border transport of money.

Earlier this year she was sentenced to death for embezzling money from the SCB between 2012 and 2022.

She and her accomplices owed VND677 trillion to the bank they had obtained through 1,300 different loans.

The court also found her guilty of bribery and violating banking regulations.

She has appealed the death sentence.