The summons list includes 2,400 people linked to the case, including representatives of companies allegedly involved in illicit withdrawals from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB). Nearly two hundred lawyers will participate in the trial, and five of them will defend Lan.
The court will also summon Lan’s husband, Chu Nap Kee Eric, a Chinese national.
Lan, 68, chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat, will be tried on March 5 before the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on charges of corruption, violating banking regulations and embezzlement.
Eighty-five other people were charged with similar crimes, as well as “abuse of power and position in the performance of official duties” and “irresponsibility leading to serious consequences.”
Among the accused are 45 former SCB executives, 15 former officers of the State Bank of Vietnam, three officers of the Government Inspectorate and a former officer of the National Audit Office.
Fourteen people face the death penalty, including Lan and Do Thi Nhan, former head of the central bank’s inspection and supervision department, who allegedly accepted $5.2 million in bribes.
Five former leaders of the SCB who had gone into hiding were also summoned.
Chinese national Sun Henry Ka Ziang, director of SCB, and Canadian national Lam Lee George, former director of the bank, have both gone into hiding and will be investigated separately from the case.
The trial is expected to last nearly two months, until April 29. SCB is the victim of the trial against Lan and his accomplices.
Prosecutors said that in 2011, Lan acquired three private banks to merge with SCB, which she used as if it were her own private bank in order to finance what was effectively her own business – the real estate developer Van Thinh Phat and its ecosystem.
Although Lan did not hold direct executive power at Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB), she owned 91.5 percent of the lender’s shares through other individuals.
She asked SCB executives to coordinate with Van Thinh Phat’s top officials to withdraw the money from the bank via fake loan applications.
For many years, Lan repeatedly asked his accomplices to fork over the money first and complete the paperwork later.
From 2012 to 2022, Lan’s entourage took out more than 2,500 loans from SCB, with a total disbursement of more than 1 quadrillion VND ($44 billion), accounting for 93% of the total credits issued by the lender .
The remaining 7% was loaned to regular customers.
This sum is equivalent to 10.7% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022, which stood at $409 billion. As of 2022, Lan was responsible for 1,300 unpaid loans at the bank, worth a total of VND677 trillion. The loans were classified as “uncollectible.”
Lan ordered SCB officials to disburse the loans to her companies, then she withdrew them in cash to prevent their origin from being traced.
Between February 2018 and October 2022, it submitted 916 loan applications to the bank for a total of VND545 trillion and appropriated VND304 trillion that was granted to it.
The loans carry a cumulative unpaid interest of 130,000 billion dong.
Lan’s activities caused losses of VND64.6 trillion to the bank, said prosecutors, who also accused her of paying bribes to conceal the bank’s financial situation.
