On April 11, 2024, Vietnam's richest woman, Truong My Lan, was sentenced to death. It stands to reason that the death sentence of Vietnam's richest man has nothing to do with China, but after Zhang Meilan was sentenced to death, it caused a wave of attention and discussion on the Chinese Internet.
So who is this Zhang Meilan? Why is Vietnam's richest woman in China concerned after being sentenced to death? What crime did she commit to be sentenced to death in Vietnam?
The richest woman was sentenced to death
On April 19, 2024, according to the official report of Xiaoxiang Morning News, Vietnam's richest woman, who is also the main founder of Vietnam real estate company and VTP Group, Zhang Meilan, was officially sentenced to death by the Vietnamese government.
The Vietnamese side accused Zhang Meilan of committing fraud in Vietnam through the ghost company and bribing Vietnamese official government officials, as well as illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank, the fifth largest bank in Vietnam, and the amount of fraud is extremely large!
According to relevant news reports, the amount of money obtained by Zhang Meilan through fraud on the Vietnamese side can almost be equal to the amount of nearly three percentage points of Vietnam's GDP in 2022.
After multiple investigations and audits, the Vietnamese side confirmed that his proof was true and officially sentenced him to death on April 11 local time. But even if Truong My Lan is arrested, for Vietnam, the crisis in the domestic financial system is still not over.
This fraud case has had a great impact on the entire Vietnamese economic and trade system, especially Truong My Lan, who united with Saigon Commercial Bank, the fifth largest bank in Vietnam, in the process of committing fraud.
In any case of fraud, once there is a bank involved, the impact and loss caused by it should not be underestimated. After the arrest of Truong My Lan, the overall reputation of Saigon Commercial Bank was seriously affected, and at the same time, the entire stock market in Vietnam collapsed.
Of course, the outside world is suspicious of the identity of the richest woman in Zhang Meilan, in fact, even in Vietnam, most people do not know much about the basic funds that Zhang Meilan has.
When the company founded by Zhang Meilan, VTP Group, was planning in the early days, the business territory was very large, but in fact, the company was not listed.
A company that has not yet been listed can cause a huge financial crisis in Vietnam, and you can imagine how much money it has made by using this company's name to make money.
As a real estate company, if you want to develop smoothly in the future, you must make detailed arrangements in terms of land planning as soon as possible, which is why most real estate companies often choose to have a good relationship with government officials before they operate.
However, how to build a good relationship, the middle scale is very important, if we fail to grasp the scale, it may lead to corruption breeding in it.
Zhang Meilan proposed that when she was planning her business, she also wanted to build a good relationship with the Vietnamese government and officials from the perspective of a real estate company, but she chose a very wrong path.
Instead of seriously planning a land deal, she chose to take shortcuts, using bribes to Vietnamese government officials to get the government to open a back door for her, and she did so more than once.
In the process of bribery, she had to continue to develop other production land, during which time VTP Group's internal cash flow had problems, and in the case of insufficient funds, she chose to embark on another risky path.
Because she needed a lot of capital, but she had too little personal start-up capital, she tried to use the method of bond issuance to prepare funds.
At that time, the content of these bonds she issued to the outside world was actually not recognized by the government, so the bonds she sold to the outside world were actually sold illegally.
In the two years from October 2018 to October 2012, she and her subordinates falsified more than 900 loan information.
Through these falsified information, 304 trillion VND, which was converted into US dollars, was successfully defrauded at Saigon Commercial Bank.
Due to the huge amount of fraudulent amount, coupled with the fact that there were more than 900 forged loan information, it is obvious that the Saigon Commercial Bank has not been approved in the early stage.
Later, he was defrauded of a large amount of fees, which not only caused a great commercial impact on Saigon Commercial Bank, but also caused great doubts about the basic audit mechanism of Saigon Commercial Bank, and the credibility of Saigon Commercial Bank plummeted.
According to official Vietnamese reports, Saigon Commercial Bank has not been able to pay this amount so far, and so far, it has incurred a lot of interest on the original principal.
In view of the fact that Zhang Meilan's personal fraud is true, and the relevant evidence can also prove that Zhang Meilan's cumulative fraud amount in the past few years is extremely large, the Vietnamese People's Procuratorate sentenced Zhang Meilan to death through evidence collection and the final establishment of the crime.
At the same time, Zhang Meilan's crime was officially announced to the public, from 2012 to 2022, for nearly 10 years, Zhang Meilan used various illegal means to bribe and forge loan procedures in Vietnam, and at the same time controlled commercial banks to withdraw huge amounts of funds, and the crime was extremely heinous.
During the course of the trial, the prosecutors believed that Truong Mei Lan herself was legally conscious, and that she personally chose to embark on the road of breaking the law and committing crimes for personal gain, which had an extremely negative impact on Vietnam's economic system and public opinion.
Therefore, Zhang Meilan's criminal sentence must be severely punished, and it is recommended that the maximum punishment be imposed. After comprehensive consideration, the procuratorate sentenced him to death on April 11, local time, in a court in Ho Chi Minh City.
This fraud case has had a great impact on the whole of Vietnam, and it is also the largest financial case involving the largest amount of money that Vietnam has encountered since the founding of the country.
Zhang Meilan's identity
From the whole point of view, this case is a fraud case that occurred in Vietnam from beginning to end, but a very important reason for the major concern in China is the person of Zhang Meilan, who is called a Vietnamese Chinese in some media reports in Vietnam.
Truong My Lan herself should actually be considered a native of Vietnam, she was born in 1956. I grew up in Vietnam and received environmental education from Vietnam.
However, a very important reason why Vietnam believes that Zhang Meilan is a Vietnamese Chinese is that Zhang Meilan's ancestral home is near the Hao River in Shantou, Guangdong.
When a reporter in Vietnam conducted an investigation, he found that Zhang Meilan's ancestors actually immigrated to Vietnam during the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and then started a business in Vietnam, and her family itself is very famous.
Zhang Meilan was born in fact, it can be said that she was born as a rich third generation, Zhang Meilan's parents made a fortune in Vietnam a few years ago, and the family is also well-known in Vietnam.
Zhang Meilan's father was born in Vietnam, although her ancestors migrated to Vietnam, but she was born in Vietnam in the future. But Zhang Meilan's mother, who is Vietnamese and Chinese, joined Vietnam later.
When Zhang Meilan was young, her father deliberately cultivated some of her keen sense in the business field, and it was also under her father's cultivation that she had already begun to try to start her own business when she was in high school.
Because of the good family conditions, when she was a child, her father often had to do business and go to other places, especially to fly all over the world.
Every time she went out, Zhang Meilan's father would bring a lot of novel gadgets to his daughter, most of which were from abroad, which were very rare in Vietnam at that time.
Although the price of many things is not very expensive, because they have not appeared much in Vietnam and are brought back from abroad, many small objects and small goods are especially loved by other students in Zhang Meilan's class.
Zhang Meilan grasped the curiosity of other classmates, and when she was 16 years old, she tried to use some small objects brought back by her father every time to speculate and resell things in the class.
Her business acumen is indeed outstanding, and in just one semester, she has made a lot of money in the class by using this way of reselling foreign goods.
At that time, the money Zhang Meilan earned was all petty fights, although it sounds great that high school students can earn money through their own skills, but in fact, even if the classmates buy things from her, the money she can earn is very limited.
But this entrepreneurial experience in high school left a deep impression on her, and also accumulated experience for her later development, and she began to believe more and more that she could make money faster by using speculation.
Around the 90s, the overall development of Vietnam at that time was still very bad, and China and Vietnam had experienced a self-defense counterattack war against Vietnam earlier, and Vietnam did not have a friendly relationship with China for a long time at that time.
Later, in the seventies and eighties, because of the reform and opening up, the country's economy developed rapidly, and Vietnam, which is next door, saw this development of China, so it began to imitate China and wanted to carry out reform and opening up at home.
At that time, Vietnam asked China for help, and China did not hide its smuggling, although China and Vietnam did experience some not very good things before, but when Vietnam asked for help, China still helped Vietnam build a reform and opening up system for the first time.
The Vietnamese government's reform and opening up policies have indeed ushered in a great impact on Vietnam's development in a short period of time, and the domestic economic development has been getting better and better.
Zhang Meilan also saw the trend of reform and opening up at that time, and at that time, China's domestic real estate industry was also developing extremely rapidly under the influence of reform and opening up.
With the support of her father, Zhang Meilan founded her own company, which later became VTP Fat Company.
In just a few years, because of the government's welfare policy and Zhang Meilan's own ability to see the opportunity, this company quickly became the fastest growing head enterprise in Vietnam.
In 1993, in order to further expand her business territory, Zhang Meilan chose to marry Zhu Liji, a well-known businessman in Hong Kong, China.
Later, because she was no longer satisfied with real estate enterprises, she began to make financial investment, catering development, hotel development, shopping center construction, etc., which are almost related to people's lives. As long as she can make money, Zhang Meilan's company will intervene.
Later, VTP and some Chinese companies also began to cooperate, this company is not very well-known in China, but in Vietnam, it is indeed very well-known.
Many people may be curious, such a company should have a bright future, why did Zhang Meilan choose to embark on the road of fraud?
In fact, when Zhang Meilan first founded this company, it was difficult to trade funds, and she used some illegal means to obtain resource funds.
She is not the kind of down-to-earth businessman, in the process of enterprise development, she has used speculation to pay illegal bribes more than once, in order to help her own business develop more smoothly.
Therefore, it is not so much that Zhang Meilan can't see that she is looking for a dead end in the process of enterprise development, but that from the very beginning, when this company was built, it was based on speculation and illegal operations, and slowly grew up.
In fact, Zhang Meilan herself is still very good at covering up her crimes, and the reason why there will be such a big thunderstorm this time is mainly because the mainland has begun to carry out anti-corruption and corruption work, and Vietnam next door has also begun to carry out government investigations.
In the course of this process, the government found that some officials in Ho Chi Minh City had obviously taken bribes, and they found out all kinds of evil deeds of Truong My Lan, and therefore brought her to justice.
The use of speculation and reversal of the way to develop rapidly in the period of reform and opening up, and after more than ten years have not been discovered, later it was still to learn from China's investigation of corruption before discovering this matter, so many economists in China believe that Zhang Meilan's arrest is actually a proof of Vietnam's failure to copy China.
epilogue
Zhang Meilan's fall is inevitable, and there are big problems in this way of business development through speculation, corruption, etc.
If you want to grow through opportunistic methods, the final result will inevitably be that the underlying foundation is unstable, and if you are not careful, the high-rise building will collapse.
Information sources:
[1] After the richest woman was sentenced to death, Vietnam's fifth-largest bank was "dragged into the water" Original2024-04-19 13:19·Xiaoxiang Morning News
[2] Accused of fraud of 90 billion! Vietnam's richest woman, Truong My Lan, was sentenced to death, claiming to have no knowledge or experience in the banking field Global Times2024-04-12 09:04Beijing
[3] 67-year-old Vietnam's richest woman, Zhang Meilan, death sentence! Accused of defrauding "3% of the country's GDP", the documents involved amounted to 6 tons 2024-04-11 21:00·Red Star News