The arrest of the chairwoman of the Vietnam-based Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, Troung My Lan, has again brought the Chinese connection with business tycoons in Vietnam into the limelight, The Singapore Post reported.
Earlier, on 8 October, Troung My Lan was arrested on suspicion of financial fraud as the country intensified its long anti-graft fight drive, The Strait Times reported. Truong My Lan was accused of illegally issuing bonds to raise trillions of dong (tens of millions of dollars) from investors during the 2018-2019 periods, the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam said in a news statement released on 8 October.
Troung My Lan’s husband, who is Cantonese Chinese and deals in real estate, is reported to be a distant family member of former disgraced Chinese security tsar Zhou Yongkang and maintains strong ties with senior party functionaries in China.
The unnatural deaths of three senior executives from Van Thinh Phat Group during the first few days of October 2022 raised speculation of Chinese connection in this case, according to The Singapore Post.
The Vietnamese authorities are assuming that the three people, belonging to the Van Thinh Phat group, have been eliminated by Chinese spies to save Lan, as they had proof of all her misdoings. There are also rumours that the death of Vietnam’s former President Tran Dai Quang was also linked to the Chinese. Tran died in 2018 while holding the post of President. Lan allegedly paid him one billion dollars as a bribe, but he did not advance Chinese interests.
According to senior doctors in his case, no investigations could point out what disease he was suffering from and it appeared to be a case of poisoning, according to the Singapore Post.Considering the sensitivity , the Vietnamese authorities have banned media houses from publishing this story and have attributed the deaths to natural causes.To prevent Chinese nationals from purchasing land in strategic locations, the Vietnamese govt prohibited foreigners from purchasing land along the Danang coast.