HANOI: A Vietnamese real estate tycoon was convicted Thursday of fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars and sentenced to life in prison, in a case that has been a centerpiece of the government’s crackdown on corruption.
Truong My Lan was already convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City court of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product — in a separate case and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
The trials were broken into two parts due to the number of allegations against her, and Thursday’s verdict adds to Lan’s legal troubles as she awaits the appeal of her death sentence to be heard.
Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences in the past decade and executed more than 400 prisoners. It is a possible sentence for 14 different crimes but is generally only applied in cases of murder and drug trafficking.
“Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” the VNexpress online newspaper quoted Lan, the chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat, as telling the judges in her closing statement last week.
“For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions have affected tens of thousands of families.”
Nguyen Hieu, a schoolteacher whose life savings of $36,000 is tied up in illegal bonds issued by Lan’s company, said the life sentence was fair.
“She deserves the punishment,” he said, adding that he hoped the death sentence from the first trial is commuted so that Lan has the opportunity to pay back her victims.
All other 33 co-defendants were found guilty of various charges and received sentences ranging from two to 23 years in prison. They included Chu Nap Kee, Lan’s husband, who was sentenced to two years for money laundering.
In addition to obtaining property by fraud, Lan was also convicted of money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfer charges, according to state-run media.
She was accused of raising $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors by issuing bonds illegally through four companies, according to state media reports.
She was also found guilty of siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and for using companies controlled by her to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion in and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022.
It was not immediately clear if Lan would appeal the verdict and no date has yet been set for her appeal of her death penalty conviction to be heard.
In the April conviction, she was found to have orchestrated financial fraud amounting to $12.5 billion for illegally controlling a major bank allowing loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion, according to state media reports.
Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022.
The Communist Party’s “blazing furnace” campaign has also touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.
Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after being implicated in the campaign. Since 2016, thousands of party officials have been disciplined, including former President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the former head of parliament, Vuong Dinh Hue, both of whom resigned.
In all, eight members of the powerful Politburo have been ousted on corruption allegations, compared to none between 1986 and 2016.
The anti-corruption drive began in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 that authorities began scanning the private sector. Since then, several owners of Vietnam’s fast-growing businesses have been arrested.
The campaign had been the hallmark of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s top politician. who died earlier this year at age 80.
The ideologue had called corruption a grave threat to the party and vowed that the campaign would be a “blazing furnace” in which no one was untouchable.
In another high-profile case, business tycoon Trinh Van Quyet was found guilty in August of defrauding stockholders of nearly $150 million by falsely inflating the value of his company.
The Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Quyet to 21 years in prison and convicted 49 co-defendants on a variety charges, with sentences ranging from probation to multiple years in prison.
Lan and her family established the Van Thinh Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam shifted from a state-run economy to a more market-oriented approach that was open to foreign investors. She started out helping her mother, a Chinese entrepreneur, sell cosmetics in Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market, according to the state media outlet Tien Phong.
Van Thinh Phat became one of Vietnam’s richest real estate companies, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers. This made her a key player in the country’s financial industry.
Lan’s first trial shocked many Vietnamese.
Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam is trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to diversify supply chains away from China.
Vietnamese real estate tycoon sentenced to life for billions in fraud in government graft crackdown
https://arab.news/5svyt
Vietnamese real estate tycoon sentenced to life for billions in fraud in government graft crackdown
- Truong My Lan was already convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City court of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion
- The trials were broken into two parts due to the number of allegations against the real estate tycoon
Republicans eye actions against the courts and judges as Trump rails against rulings
- House GOP leaders say all options are under consideration as they rush to rein in judges who are halting President Donald Trump’s actions at a rapid pace
WASHINGTON: Angry over the crush of court rulings against the Trump administration, Republicans in Congress are trying to slap back at the federal judiciary with proposals to limit the reach of its rulings, cut funding and even impeach judges, tightening the GOP’s grip on government.
House GOP leaders say all options are under consideration as they rush to rein in judges who are halting President Donald Trump’s actions at a rapid pace. In many cases, the courts are questioning whether the firings of federal workers, freezing of federal funds and shuttering of long-running federal offices are unlawful actions by the executive branch and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
In perhaps the most high-profile case, Judge James E. Boasberg ordered planeloads of deported immigrants to be turned around, raising the ire of Trump, who called for his impeachment, and billionaire Musk, who is funneling campaign cash to House Republicans backing impeachment efforts. The president calls the judges “lunatics.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that “desperate times call for desperate measures” without mentioning impeachment.
“We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know,” the Republican speaker said. “We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts, and all these other things.”
Not yet 100 days into the new administration, the unusual attack on the federal judiciary is the start of what is expected to be a protracted battle between the co-equal branches of government, unmatched in modern memory. As the White House tests the judiciary, trying to bend it to Trump’s demands, the Congress, controlled by the president’s own Republican Party, appears ready to back him up.
It all comes as the Supreme Court last summer granted the executive broad immunity from prosecution, setting the stage for the challenges to come. But Chief Justice John Roberts warned more recently that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Democrats are warning against what they view as an assault on the judicial branch, which so far has been the only check against Trump and DOGE’s far-reaching federal actions. Threats against the federal judges, already on the rise, remain of high concern.
“It is outrageous to even think of defunding the courts,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, reacting to the House speaker’s claims. “The courts are the bulwark against Trump, and the Republicans can’t stand it.”
House GOP leaders met Tuesday with Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which will hold a hearing on the issue next week. The House is also expected to vote on a bill from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., that would limit the geographic reach of certain federal rulings, to prevent temporary restraining orders from being enacted nationwide.
Jordan said he also spoke Saturday with Trump during college wrestling championships in Philadelphia.
“All options are on the table,” Jordan said late Monday. “We want to get the facts. Gather the facts.”
Since Trump took office, and with Musk, on a mission to dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal government, the administration’s tech-inspired move-fast-and-break-things ethos has run up against the constraints of federal law.
An onslaught of court cases has been filed by employee groups, democracy organizations and advocacy groups trying to keep federal programs — from the US Agency for International Development to the Education Department — from being dismantled.
Judges have issued various types of restraints on Trump’s actions. Trump’s first administration alone accounted for 66 percent of all the injunctions issued on presidential actions between 2001 and 2023, according to data from a Harvard Law Review piece circulated by Republicans.
The legislation from Issa had no support from Democrats when it was approved by the Judiciary Committee last month. A similar bill was introduced Monday by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said Trump is being hit with injunctions because he is “engaged in terrible, irresponsible and lawless violations of people’s rights.”
“We are winning in court,” Raskin said in a video address. “We’ve got make sure we defend the integrity of the judiciary.”
When it comes to actually impeaching the judges, however, top Republicans have stopped short of backing what would be a severe action.
Impeachments are rare in Congress, particularly of judges, but several rank-and-file House Republicans have proposed legislation to launch impeachment proceedings against various federal judges who have ruled in ways unfavorable to the Trump administration.
Musk has rewarded House Republicans who signed onto impeachment legislation with political donations, according to a person familiar with information first reported by the New York Times. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the matter.
Republicans are particularly focused on Boasberg, the chief judge of the district court in Washington, D.C., who Jordan said is in a “somewhat unique in that, you know, his decision was crazy.”
The judge is weighing whether the Trump administration defied his order after the planes of migrants landed in El Salvador, turned over to that country’s notorious mega-prison system. The Trump administration had invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a war-time authority used during World War II against Japanese Americans, for the deportations the judge said lacked due process.
Any impeachment effort would also require backing from the Senate, where GOP leaders also panned the effort.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., echoed the advice of Roberts in allowing normal legal procedures to play out.
“At the end of the day, there is a process, and there’s an appeals process, and you know, I suspect that’s ultimately how this will get handled,” Thune said.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to stay in Russian control, Moscow says
- The ministry also said that jointly operating the plant was not admissible as it would be impossible
- “The return of the station to Russia’s nuclear sector has been a fait accompli for quite some time”
MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible.
The ministry also said that jointly operating the plant was not admissible as it would be impossible to properly ensure the physical and nuclear safety of the station.
It said Zaporizhzhia region, partly controlled by Russian forces, was one of four in Ukraine that had been annexed by Russia by virtue of referendums staged seven months after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor and a presidential decree had formally made the station Russian property.
Western nations have dismissed the referendums as shams.
“The return of the station to Russia’s nuclear sector has been a fait accompli for quite some time,” the ministry statement said. “Transferring the Zaporizhzhia plant to the control of Ukraine or another country is impossible.”
Russian forces seized the station early in the invasion and each side has since routinely accused the other of staging attacks that endanger safety at the plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors.
Although the plant now produces no electricity, the UN’s nuclear watchdog has monitors stationed there, as it does at all Ukrainian nuclear power sites.
Ukraine demands the return of the station to its jurisdiction and rejects the 2022 annexation of its territory as illegal.
US President Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky suggested the United States could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.
Zelensky said the plants belong to the Ukrainian people. He said he and Trump had discussed potential US investment in the plant.
Three skiers killed, fourth critically injured in Canada avalanche
- The four men had just finished skiing in an alpine area on the east side of Kootenay Lake
- One group managed to race out of harm’s way
OTTAWA: Three skiers were killed and a fourth was critically injured when they were swept away in an avalanche in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia, police said Tuesday.
The four men had just finished skiing in an alpine area on the east side of Kootenay Lake, 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Vancouver, in the early afternoon Monday and were waiting in a staging area below the tree line with another group when tragedy struck.
“A transport helicopter was nearing the group when the pilot observed an avalanche and sounded the siren,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
One group managed to race out of harm’s way, but the other was swept away in a wall of snow.
Three of the men — a 45-year-old man from the US state of Idaho, a 44-year-old from Whistler, British Columbia, and their 53-year-old guide from the nearby town of Kaslo — were later found dead by emergency responders.
The fourth man, 40, from Nelson, British Columbia, was critically injured.
Authorities this week warned of a high risk of avalanches in the area caused by rising spring temperatures.
China poses biggest military, cyber threat to US, intel chiefs say
- The report said China’s PLA likely planned to use large language models to create fake news and enable attack networks
- “China’s military is fielding advanced capabilities, including hypersonic weapons, stealth aircraft, advanced submarines,” Gabbard told the committee
WASHINGTON: China remains the United States’ top military and cyber threat, according to a report by US intelligence agencies published on Tuesday that said Beijing was making “steady but uneven” progress on capabilities it could use to capture Taiwan.
China has the ability to hit the United States with conventional weapons, compromise US infrastructure through cyberattacks, and target its assets in space, and also seeks to displace the US as the top AI power by 2030, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said.
Russia, along with Iran, North Korea and China, seeks to challenge the US through deliberate campaigns to gain an advantage, with Moscow’s war in Ukraine having afforded it a “wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war,” the report said.
Released ahead of testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by President Donald Trump’s intelligence chiefs, the report said China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) likely planned to use large language models to create fake news, imitate personas, and enable attack networks.
“China’s military is fielding advanced capabilities, including hypersonic weapons, stealth aircraft, advanced submarines, stronger space and cyber warfare assets and a larger arsenal of nuclear weapons,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the committee. She labeled Beijing as Washington’s “most capable strategic competitor.”
“China almost certainly has a multifaceted, national-level strategy designed to displace the United States as the world’s most influential AI power by 2030,” the report said.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the committee that China had made only “intermittent” efforts to curtail the flow of precursor chemicals fueling the US fentanyl crisis due to its reluctance to crack down on lucrative Chinese businesses.
Trump has increased tariffs on all Chinese imports by 20 percent to punish Beijing for what he says is its failure to halt shipments of fentanyl chemicals. China denies playing a role in the crisis, which is the leading cause of US drug overdose deaths, but the issue has become a major point of friction between the Trump administration and Chinese officials.
INTELLIGENCE LEAK FUROR OVERSHADOWS HEARING
“There is nothing to prevent China ... from cracking down on fentanyl precursors,” Ratcliffe said.
China’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The committee hearing was overshadowed by Democratic senators grilling Ratcliffe and Gabbard over revelations that they and other top Trump officials discussed highly sensitive military plans in a Signal messaging app group that accidentally included a US journalist.
Numerous Republican senators focused their questioning on undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The intelligence report said large-scale illegal immigration had strained US infrastructure and “enabled known or suspected terrorists to cross into the United States.”
The intelligence agencies said Iran was committed to developing surrogate networks inside the US and to targeting former and current US officials.
While Iran continued to improve its domestically produced missile and UAV systems and arm a consortium of “like-minded terrorist and militant actors,” they said, the US continues to assess that Tehran “is not building a nuclear weapon.”
But US concerns about China dominated about a third of the 33-page report, which said Beijing was set to increase military and economic coercion toward Taiwan, the democratically governed island China claims as its territory.
“The PLA probably is making steady but uneven progress on capabilities it would use in an attempt to seize Taiwan and deter — and if necessary, defeat — US military intervention,” it said.
Still, it said, China faces “daunting” domestic challenges, including corruption, demographic imbalances, and fiscal and economic headwinds that could impair the ruling Communist Party’s legitimacy at home.
China’s economic growth probably will continue to slow because of low consumer and investor confidence, and Chinese officials appear to be bracing for more economic friction with the US, the report said.
UN decries hike in satellite navigation system interference
- There have been warnings of increased GNSS signal disruptions since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine
- The UN agencies voiced alarm at the impact of disruptions to such systems
GENEVA: The United Nations on Tuesday urged countries to boost protections amid a marked increase in efforts to interfere with satellite navigation systems like GPS that are critical for aviation and maritime safety.
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union, its International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization jointly voiced “grave concern” at growing disruptions of so-called Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).
Amid growing geopolitical tensions, GPS and other such systems, which are used for weapons systems but also for a vast array of vital civilian applications, have increasingly been targeted.
There have been warnings of increased GNSS signal disruptions since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as amid the Middle East conflict.
The UN agencies voiced alarm at the impact of disruptions to such systems, which they pointed out are used for everything from the navigation of civil aircraft, maritime vessels and humanitarian assistance vehicles to synchronizing telecommunications networks.
They demanded countries do more to protect the systems against so-called jamming attacks, which prevent access to satellite signals, as well as spoofing, through the broadcasting of false signals that can cause GNSS receivers in vessels or aircraft to calculate erroneous positions.
“Global Navigation Satellite Systems are critical to our safety on land, at sea and in the air,” said ITU chief Doreen Bogdan-Martin.
“Member States should ensure the uninterrupted operation of these systems for everyone’s safety and the resilience of essential services that our lives depend on.”
The joint statement called on countries to enhance the protection of the critical RNSS radio-frequency band, where GNSS systems operate.
The band should be protected against “transmissions that can adversely cause harmful interference degrading, interrupting or misleading signals used for civilian and humanitarian purposes,” the statement added.
It also urged states to “reinforce resilience of the systems that rely on RNSS for navigation, positioning and timing” and to report all cases of “harmful interference.”
And it demanded they “retain sufficient conventional navigation infrastructure for contingency support in case of RNSS outages and misleading signals,” as well as to “develop mitigation techniques for loss of services.”
