How an Infamous Vietnamese Businesswoman Engineered a $12 Billion Fraud

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Boivung You worked as a personal driver for one of Vietnam's wealthiest tycoons. Most days, his job was to drive his boss, sixty eight year old businesswoman during the Lang around bustling Ho Chiman City, and occasionally she would ask him to run other errands, like picking things up for her or delivering packages, and a lot of times these errands involved moving cash around the city.

She would basically say, I have money this afternoon at the bank, Go get it.

That's John Boudreaux, Bloomberg's Vietnam beer Chief.

These were bundles of cash. There's big bundles of cash, and he would go pick it up and he would either take it to her apartment or her real estate company or whatever entity she wanted. And sometimes she'd give them tips as much as like two hundred dollars per tripping.

And the driver kept detailed notes about each cash run he made for her.

He meticulously wrote down every trip he made.

Now, moving big stacks of cash around the city like this isn't unusual in Vietnam.

You have to remember, Vietnam for decades has been a cash based society, and it still is not unusual to see people hauling big sacks of cash to and from the banks. And people do this. They'll even put them on motorbikes. They'll recording tens of thousands of the dollars on a motorbike going to and from the banks.

What was unusual was just how much cash the driver is transporting for his boss.

She was using him to shepherd a lot of money, more than four billion dollars over the span of three and a half years.

His last drop off was in September twenty twenty two, and a month later his employer, Lang was arrested. She was accused of masterminding one of the world biggest France a massive twelve point three billion dollars scam.

It was the largest financial fraud case Vietnam has ever seen, and it's even more than the Sam Bankman freed casey United States.

A key piece of evidence in the trial the detailed notes Lang's driver had kept of every stash of cash he delivered. Today, Lang is facing even more charges in a second case that includes money laundering and illegally transporting about four point five billion dollars across the border. The news about her current trial, which involves thirty three other co defendants, is widely broadcasted, and it's become a centerpiece in the government's anti corruption campaign.

And I don't think Vietnamese have seen anything like this before, and the government has been exceedingly open and talking about how they're going after this corruption.

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It's a huge, cavernous indoor market that it is just jam packed with people and vendors. That's a hard life. They work seven days a week.

This was a time of rapid change in Vietnam. After the end of the war with the United States, the country reunified under communism, but was financially ruined and internationally isolated. To jumpstart the economy, the Communist Party of Vietnam started a series of market reforms in nineteen eighty six, and Lang saw opportunity.

She met her husband, he is a Hong Kong businessman, and together the two of them, they could see where the country was going, and they started buying up a lot of land quite cheaply, and that was the beginning of her property empire.

In nineteen ninety one, Lang founded a real estate company that rapidly became one of the country's premium property firms.

She built up a large property portfolio of hotels, restaurants, residential buildings, office buildings, and a lot of them become among the most prestigious properties in Hocheman City.

Anything that we'd recognize today.

Well, if you were to come here and you were to visit the Reverie Saigon Hotel, which is right in the center of Virtuman city, you would see a very opulent facility. You're talking about her crown jewel. It has gold plated elevators, chandeliers. The two top end suites have prices that start at twelve thousand a night.

Oh my gosh, what crazy opulence if you can afford it.

And the thing is, this opulent structure is really isn't far from the marketplace where it all began for her, But truly it is a world away for a lot of the vendors now in that marketplace, they view her as kind of this Vietnamese fairy tale, this woman who literally wrote from nothing or just like them, living life just like them, to being one of the most prestigious and wealthiest women in Vietnam.

By twenty eleven, Lang had established herself as a prominent businesswoman in Houchiman City. That year, she arranged the merger of three small and struggling banks into a larger entity, the Saigon Commercial Bank or SCB. The bank became the fifth largest lender in Vietnam. The bank would also come to be at the center of one of the world's biggest fraud cases. According to prosecutors, Lang illegally controlled more than ninety percent of the bank by paying people to

She essentially controlled ninety percent or more of the bank, and she was also able to put in place trusted lieutenants to run the bank. According to the police and prosecutors, this was essentially her own entity and she could use it to bankroll the growth of her empire.

So literally her own piggybank exactly. On a late night in October twenty twenty two, Lang was arrested at her luxury apartment.

Apparently she was getting ready for bed because when they took what the equivalent is for Vietnam at the mugshot that you can see she completely has no makeup on. And this was someone who's always known for being very koifed and everything.

It didn't take long for the word to spread and it rattled the bank's customers.

And the news was announced on a Saturday. The following Monday, there was a run on Saigon Commercial Bank and why was that people knew she was closely tied to Saigon Commercial Bank. Her real estate company was closely tied to this bank. There was panic, and so for several days people were lying up demanding their money out. The central bank governor repeatedly put out statements saying your money is safe, your money is safe, and then eventually they took over

Around thirty six thousand bondholders have been identified as victims. Together, these people allegedly invested more than one billion dollars through four companies linked to Lang.

It touches a lot of the kind of your average people people putting their faith and trust and money in this bank, and a lot of them buying these bonds and then everything just blowing up them, and so it's not just something that a bunch of wealthy people did to other wealthy people.

After spending more than a year in detainment, Lang was sentenced to death by lethal injection in April. She was also convicted of bribing government officials to look the other way. Seventeen bank or financial inspectors were also convicted, including the former head of the State Bank's Inspection and Supervision unit. That bank official was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of accepting as much as five point two million dollars in bribes. But it didn't end there.

They're being accused of laundering eighteen billion dollars, cross border, transportation of four point five billion dollars, and appropriating one point two billion dollars some investors via bond issuances.

Lang's second trial kicked off last month, and Bloomberg's Vietnam Beer chief John Boudreau says people regularly showed up to watch it on a giant screen out in front of the courthouse.

They've set up a gigantic screen that usually people here used to watch football soccer, and then there's about one hundred of these blue plastic stools. You'll have bondholders all sitting there watching this and inside, of course, all the chairs, everything is is full.

One of the reasons why this case has gotten so much attention is because it's rattled so many ordinary Vietnamese, and the Communist government is showcasing it as a kind of high level corruption they say they want to stop.

It really is endemic in the culture, from police officers taking bribes on the streets for general traffic police, two officials who will take money to ensure a project gets approved smoothly. It just becomes a way of doing things. Vietnam's late party chief Nuenfutrong, who passed away this last summer, has for decades pursued anti corruption, and he called it his Blazing Furnace campaign. He has long believed that the party's credibility is at risk if it doesn't root out high level graft.

And Lang was not the only one who got caught in the blazing furnace. The corruption fight has gone all the way up to the top, taking down three Deputy Prime ministers and two present CIDs. In just last year, officials launched corruption investigations into more than two thousand individuals, nearly double from the previous year. That's according to government data. But at the same time, critics say the probes who

It has caused massive fear among government workers bureaucrats. They're terrified if they approve project A two years from now, will the Ministry of a Public Security come knocking on their doors and saying, we're investigating your approval of this project.

For now now, foreign investors are undeterred by projects slowing down. Investments are still pouring into Vietnam at record levels, capitalizing on the country's low labor costs and established supply chains. It's Vietnam's economic rise that catapult Lang into one of the country's richest tycoons, and now her spectacular fall is riveting Vietnam. As this episode airs, Lang is still awaiting