Accept losing all assets to overcome the consequences

After nearly half a month of questioning, on March 19, the representative of the People's Procuracy will proceed to indict the defendant Truong My Lan and her accomplices.

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Ms. Truong My Lan. Photo: Nguyen Hue

During the interrogation, the defendants, former inspectors of the State Bank and subordinates of Ms. Truong My Lan, all confessed their crimes.

For her part, Ms. Lan affirmed that she did not take money from SCB Bank, and that she even had to use her family's assets to put into SCB to restructure this bank.

According to the accusation, by owning up to 91.5% of SCB's shares, Ms. Truong My Lan manipulated all of the bank's operations to serve her various purposes. Her wrongdoings caused SCB a loss of VND498,000 billion.

In court, Ms. Truong My Lan said that the indictment that she owned 91.5% of SCB's shares was incorrect, she only owned 4.9% of the shares; her two daughters each owned 5%, the rest were foreign shareholders and her friends.

During the investigation, the Investigation Police Agency has seized: 1,237 real estates directly related to Ms. Truong My Lan; 8 real estates of Au Lac Quang Ninh Company Limited (in Quang Ninh province) related to the cooperation agreement between Ms. Truong My Lan and Tuan Chau Group; shares in SCB and companies related to Ms. Lan such as: Southern Air Transport Joint Stock Company, Northern Satsco Investment Joint Stock Company, Dong A Real Estate Joint Stock Company, etc.

22 assets including 1 yacht, 2 ships, and 19 cars of Ms. Lan were also seized.

In court, although she did not plead guilty, Ms. Truong My Lan proposed to use her assets, including real estate, companies, projects, and shares in companies belonging to Van Thinh Phat Group, to remedy the consequences.

One of the “huge” assets that Ms. Lan agreed to sell is the Capital Place building at 29 Lieu Giai, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi . Ms. Truong My Lan said that her daughter, Chu Duyet Phan, is selling this building for 1 billion USD. If the transaction is completed, she will use all the money to remedy the consequences.

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Daewoo Hotel. Photo: Internet

Another very famous property in Hanoi is the Daewoo Hotel. According to Ms. Lan's testimony, her family's Bong Sen Joint Stock Company owns the majority of shares in the Daewoo Hotel, so Ms. Lan proposed to sell this hotel to remedy the consequences.

In addition, Ms. Truong My Lan also confirmed to the jury that she currently owns shares in a foreign insurance company. This insurance company belongs to a Hong Kong billionaire whose name she did not want to mention, and the amount of money she spent to buy shares is worth about 920 billion VND.

Currently, the market price of these shares is up to 5,000 billion VND. Ms. Lan agreed that when sold, she will use this money to remedy the consequences.

Before this presentation of Ms. Lan, the panel of judges announced that the defendant's daughter informed that these shares were only sold for about 40 million USD, equivalent to 920 billion VND as at the time of purchase.

Ms. Truong My Lan also agreed to transfer the vaccine factory of Van Thinh Phat Group to get money to remedy the consequences.

The earnest reason to keep the old villa

In addition to the above assets, Ms. Truong My Lan agreed to transfer all companies, factories, industrial zones, and shares in many companies to get money to remedy the consequences.

However, for the ancient villa, which is a historical relic at 112 Vo Van Tan (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), Ms. Lan earnestly asked to keep it so that her daughter could restore and preserve it.

"I ask the court not to seize this building, but to return it to my son and his family so that he can repair and preserve this historical and cultural relic for Vietnam. My family has been repairing it for 5 years now, and I hope the panel of judges will lift the seizure so that we can continue repairing it, otherwise it will be damaged," Ms. Truong My Lan earnestly requested.

According to Ms. Lan's statement, her family bought this villa a long time ago for 700 billion VND.

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Villa at 112 Vo Van Tan (Phuong Nam Villa). Photo: Nguyen Hue

Ms. Truong My Lan's villa was formerly called "Phuong Nam Villa", built over 100 years ago on a 2,819 m2 plot of land in ancient French architecture.

The ancient villa was previously owned by two people, Dang Kim Chi (born in 1938) and Nguyen Kim Sa Dang (born in 1934). In 2015, Ms. Truong My Lan, through MINERVA Joint Stock Company, bought this ancient villa for 35 million USD, equivalent to about 700 billion VND at that time.

In 2019, Ms. Truong My Lan assigned Singapore's Stonewest Limited to restore the villa to its original state to preserve it as a cultural heritage and historical relic. However, immediately after Ms. Truong My Lan was arrested, the construction contractor withdrew.