Summary
Vietnam’s High People’s Court upheld the death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, convicted of embezzlement and bribery in a record $12 billion fraud case.
Lan can avoid execution by returning $9 billion (three-quarters of the stolen funds), potentially reducing her sentence to life imprisonment.
Her crimes caused widespread economic harm, including a bank run and $24 billion in government intervention to stabilize the financial system.
Lan has admitted guilt but prosecutors deemed her actions unprecedentedly damaging. She retains limited legal recourse through retrial procedures.
You got it. If this person committed fraud they owe damages to the victims of the fraud, not the government. If the government spills this persons blood on the street, what do you get? The only thing that happens is that the punishment for fraud is now death. Do you honestly believe it will stop here? What about the fraudster that commits $100 million worth of fraud? Should they be executed too? What about $10,000? When you apply capital punishment to civil crimes, the application can only ever be arbitrary and unjust.
For this single case in an isolated vacuum, sure.
Outside that you’d get no more fraud, and no more future fraud victims, because the punishment for it wouldn’t be worth the risk for anyone to try.
Like I said, if the punishment for a parking violation was death, every single driver would make damn sure they would never, ever get one. Apply that for every “deliberate” crime and you end up with a society with essentially zero crime.
Also a lot fewer people alive, but zero crime.
Where the line goes is completely up to the justice system, how badly they want to prevent that type of crime, as it goes with every crime and punishment.