Property tycoon Truong My Lan wants assets unfrozen to compensate bond scam victims

Many assets owned by the property tycoon and her accomplices have been seized or frozen, including stakes in companies worth VND12.3 trillion (US$501 million) and nine properties in Hanoi, HCMC and Da Nang.

The 68-year-old chairwoman of developer Van Thinh Phat asked the People's Court of HCMC Monday to release those assets so that her family and friends could sell them.

She promised to use the money raised exclusively to pay compensation.

Some assets that belong to her family and some others, and not related to the case, should be returned to their owners, she pleaded.

The assets include her 18% share in a Vietcombank – Bonday – Ben Thanh venture, which she bought in 2011 before Saigon Commercial Bank was incorporated.

The venture owns the Vietcombank Tower Saigon, one of the tallest buildings in District 1. Lan said she had been negotiating with the bank before her arrest to sell her stake for VND920 billion. Now she wants it unfrozen that so her family can sell it.

Lan also wants her 84.8% share in property developer Ngoc Vien Dong to be released to her family as the company was not in any way involved with her alleged crime at SCB.

The company was established to develop a major port in District 4, and the shares are worth an estimated VND4.58 trillion.

Lan also sought the release of her 73.5% share in a company that owns 70% of Daeha, which owns the Hanoi Daewoo Hotel, and VND1.4 trillion worth of shares in Tan Viet Securities.

At the ongoing trial she faces charges of defrauding thousands of bond investors and illegal trans-border movement of money, and 33 others are accused of abetting her.

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