[HN Gopher] Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in $27...
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Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in $27B fraud case
Author : spxneo
Score : 91 points
Date : 2024-04-11 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| I kept trying to figure out what does someone's Local Area
| Network have to do with this story, but after skimming the
| article I realized that "My LAN" is the name of the accused.
|
| In my eastern EU country, following the fall of communism, a lot
| of fraudsters got wealthy over night by selling the state's(the
| people's) assets and pocketing the money themselves while the
| common people were wallowing in poverty worse than during
| communism.
|
| Similarly, they all deserve the death sentence too but most of
| them haven't even served jail time.
| cgeier wrote:
| According to the article, she is called "Truong My Lan",
| perhaps the author's muscle memory or autocorrect was kicking
| in.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| No, it's just the silly HN parser that automatically changes
| the case of some words in titles based on an obscure internal
| rulebook dictionary and also removes other words that sound
| click-baity.
|
| I'm still baffled HN hasn't opensourced their stack.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| It's Lisp. I suspect there is no copy of the source code,
| they've just kept adding to the running program.
|
| Just kidding but that does sound like a fun art project to
| see how complex you could get...
| mintplant wrote:
| Hacker News auto-"fixes" some keywords in story titles, it
| could be that.
| philsnow wrote:
| Not sure (because I don't know Vietnamese names very well but I
| thought Truong would be her surname) but some communities write
| the surname / family name in allcaps for cultural
| disambiguation, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_name#Eastern_name_ord...
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| This is the part of the conversation where I'll point out
| that Eastern name order is - in a sense - incorrect, because
| The Guardian is a UK publication.
|
| I know _why_ they do it, because Romanization[1] and
| transliteration[2] exist, but it still looks odd.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration
| philsnow wrote:
| Every organization that publishes (or at least has a style
| guide) has to make a decision about whether to put names in
| their "native" order or to standardize to their audience's
| expected order. I can see an argument for either way:
|
| Standardize on audience expected order: we're a UK
| publication, we're going to write the way names are in the
| UK
|
| Standardize on native order: we want to respect the
| cultures of the people in our publications
| andsoitis wrote:
| Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
|
| Then I read there are a few countries that impose capital
| punishment for non-violent crimes: China, Indonesia (some acts of
| corruption which "damage national economy or finances"), Morocco,
| Thailand (bribery), Vietnam (bribery).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_non-vio...
| shp0ngle wrote:
| On one hand it's Vietnam where everyone bribes everyone.
| (Literally. Stealing country funds is a fact of life.)
|
| On the other hand it's 21 billion.
|
| Still rough.
| Saigonautica wrote:
| Some people here do pay bribes. I do not. Neither do most
| people around my age that I know.
|
| I immigrated here 12 years ago. I have a company license, a
| driving license, proper residency, and so on.
|
| I got every last piece of it by filling out forms, and
| waiting a normal amount of time. I speak Vietnamese like a
| small child and have no Vietnamese heritage.
|
| Perhaps some people will report something different, and
| perhaps they are also correct. However, this is my story.
| alephnerd wrote:
| We're Westerners so we're insulated from low level
| corruption because we can report to the Tourist Police and
| our local Consulate or Embassy, who will complain to that
| Quan's MPS.
|
| The kind of low level corruption your mentioning impacts
| the working class or middle class (the kind living in a 1
| bedroom apartment in D10 with a Honda motorbike) because
| they have no recourse.
|
| That said, the mid-upper level corruption is very
| significant. How else do you see retired generals and
| senior party apparatchiks with a $50/mo pension eating
| steaks at the Landmark 81 and living in a villa in Thao
| Dien.
|
| And this is why my SO makes it a principle to always speak
| in English so she doesn't get Vietnamese service.
| notahacker wrote:
| Quite a few in that part of the world impose it for
| international drug smuggling, and we're talking mules rather
| than kingpins here. And if you really want to be appalled, look
| at the ones where adultery or homosexuality are potentially
| capital crimes.
| wubrr wrote:
| Why is it more barbaric than death penalty for something like
| murder? How much damage would 27B in corruption cause to people
| and society?
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Everyone steals in Vietnam.
|
| Every time the communists change positions in the politburo,
| the new communist in charge arrests the previous one for
| corruption. And so it goes.
|
| (Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the one who was hailed for zero covid
| previously, was later arrested for... stealing covid funds.
| Oh wow, who knew)
|
| There is 0 trust between actual people for the party. People
| just shut up because the economy is doing fine and people
| have jobs.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| My friend worked in Vietnam and Laos for several years.
| Every company had to hire a communist party member on staff
| who rarely showed up. When they did they would demand
| everyone go drinking, paid for by the company.
| kneel wrote:
| Communist parties sound like fun
| Saigonautica wrote:
| I own a company in Vietnam. I do not do this, and was
| never asked to do this.
|
| To the best of my knowledge, neither have any of my other
| colleagues that own businesses.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| He worked at a few large companies with offices, and this
| is what he told me. Maybe you need to be big and legacy
| with a physical footprint. But this is what he told me.
| He has a lot of very interesting anecdotes. For example
| in Laos if you impregnate a woman as a foreigner, you
| have to marry her, under penalty of death. So his
| girlfriends were always trying to mess with his condoms,
| try to get him to have unprotected sex, and various
| oddities. So he claimed
| olddustytrail wrote:
| It seems your friend is prone to tall tales and you are
| incredibly gullible.
|
| No connection to your username at all...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We have those in the West, they're just called "team
| building exercises".
| spxneo wrote:
| From what I've seen in south korea recently, that is
| pretty chill if all they want to do is go to KTV and
| drink.
|
| Samsung was forced to hire a bunch of "socialist
| leaning/political victims" who wants to nationalize the
| company and turn it into their piggy bank (this will most
| likely happen after recent election results)
| alephnerd wrote:
| You're yelling at the sky. All these HNers don't even know
| about To Lam's whole Saltbae scandal and how he still
| remains on top, let alone all the other grafts and
| political insider shit that happens.
| wubrr wrote:
| I mean, if they're all corrupt, I don't really feel bad for
| them going after each other either.
| snapcaster wrote:
| I kind of see it as the opposite of barbaric. Someone stealing
| billions of dollars has caused far far far more net harm than
| someone committing a one off violent crime. I guess roughly
| tying consequences to harm caused seems less barbaric to me
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| She owned more of a bank than she was supposed to, and used
| that bank to get bigger loans than she would normally be able
| to get, and then she bought commercial real estate with those
| loans.
|
| Where does the net harm come in here? I guess other mega rich
| property developers were prevented from acquiring the
| commercial real estate...maybe a few hundred millionaires
| were harmed by this billionaire. Is there anything more than
| that?
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Where does the net harm come in here?
|
| The harm comes from the possible worlds where the loans
| don't get paid back. That's the reason why there are loan
| limits in the first place.
| TylerE wrote:
| Also if banks are loaning money to her, that's money
| that's not being loaned to other people.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Not entirely. She used almost 1,000 fake loan applications
| to to appropriate the $12.5b from the bank. Then 3
| employees at the bank committed suicide from October
| 6th-14th in 2022 which resulted in a bank run.
|
| There are 82 other defendents, many of them being
| leadership at the bank, with 5 of them in hiding.
| scarmig wrote:
| There is some efficiency loss: capital was deployed less
| efficiently than it would have otherwise been, and that
| costs money, which means it costs lives.
|
| Depending on the particularities of the corruption/fraud,
| that could be in the millions, could be in the billions. So
| anywhere from one human life to thousands. It's just
| diffuse, so we can't pinpoint a particular person who died
| due to it, just society at large.
|
| (Not saying I support the death penalty for this.)
| Terr_ wrote:
| Not necessarily agreeing about this case, but a relevant
| quote:
|
| > "Do you understand what I'm saying?" shouted Moist. "You
| can't just go around killing people!"
|
| > "Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.
|
| > "What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"
|
| > "I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three
| Eight People," said the golem calmly.
|
| > "I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump.
| I may be--all the things you know I am, but I am not a
| killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
|
| > "No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled,
| Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You
| Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail,
| It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken
| Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A
| Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You
| Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You
| Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their
| Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The
| Game."
|
| -- _Going Postal_ by Terry Pratchett
| otikik wrote:
| You will always get a +1 from me if you quote Mr Pratchett
| bilbo0s wrote:
| And if I remember correctly, Mr Lipvig got the death
| penalty as well.
|
| He was just given the, um, "choice", of taking the leap
| into the death penalty, or becoming the virtual prisoner of
| an extremely powerful "guardian angel". Who was in
| actuality more of a ruthless probation officer.
|
| The message was clear, we should not be blind to the harm
| that indifference to corruption metes out on the larger
| society.
| Terr_ wrote:
| No sir, that was the late Alfred Spangler, and while
| hanging was rather excessive, at least he wasn't put into
| the scorpion-pit like a mime.
|
| But slightly-more-seriously, I wouldn't read _too_ far
| into the surface of the Ankh-Morpork dictatorship and
| criminal-justice system as a direct moral signpost for
| our times, since sometimes a plot device is just a plot
| device.
| jayrot wrote:
| Shades of Rimmer being prosecuted by the Inquisitor.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Poverty kills people. (Statistically - you can't say "that
| person died from poverty", but you can say that a certain
| number of deaths were due to poverty.)
|
| $27 billion is a lot of people in poverty who otherwise
| wouldn't be. How many people died (or will) from that? Died
| from lack of food, lack of shelter, lack of medical care,
| lack of hope?
|
| Mind you, I'm not sure that the death penalty is the right
| answer. But if you accept the death penalty for murder, it's
| not completely absurd in this situation.
| twojobsoneboss wrote:
| Well then may all Meta workers rest in peace, was great while
| it lasted.
| AnthOlei wrote:
| How have meta employees stolen money?
| twojobsoneboss wrote:
| > has caused far far far more net harm than
| datavirtue wrote:
| This sounds like an argument for revenge justice.
|
| I think of the death penalty as a way to remove someone from
| society who is dangerous and where there is no foreseeable
| path to freedom. When their freedom means others are likely
| be assaulted and killed if they are allowed to go free again.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric._
|
| I think one can make an argument that death penalties
| themselves are barbaric given miscarriage of justice is a
| thing. And let's be honest, the electric chair is gruesome in
| the day and age of Nesdonal & Norcuron.
|
| To single out captial punishment for a capitalist crime as
| barbarism reeks of double standards just because there's no
| precedent for it in the West.
| tivert wrote:
| > Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
|
| Honestly, I think it's fine, but only if reserved for
| billionaires. That kind of economic power breeds arrogance,
| which needs something to keep it in check. The quantity has a
| quality all its own.
|
| The death penalty is definitely not OK for low level people or
| the sums even a wealthy regular person could have. And I don't
| even think it should be an option for most violent crime,
| either.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In places like Vietnam and China, billionaires aren't the
| "apex predators". The Party leadership is.
|
| That is why they can get the death penalty.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Don't get it twisted man. At least in China, they kill
| party leadership too. In fact, just to make sure no one is
| holding out on them, they'll take out your wife _and_
| mistress too.
|
| In China, the party is almighty, but it won't hesitate to
| eat it's young, it's parents, or even it's mate.
| xandrius wrote:
| Basically you are ok for death penalty strictly for other
| people? Seems quite convenient :D
|
| I also am OK for 100% tax to anyone who's not me or my
| immediate family.
| tivert wrote:
| > Basically you are ok for death penalty strictly for other
| people? Seems quite convenient :D
|
| Come on. Your objection is meaningless distraction, because
| it's so general it's an objection to _any_ kind of
| punishment of _anyone_ proposed by anyone who isn 't
| themselves guilty.
| xandrius wrote:
| Not really, if I am OK with death penalty for
| manslaughter, I put myself at risk (or someone I love) to
| be at the receiving end of that law: it happens to people
| without really wanting it.
|
| On the other hand, becoming billionaire is both extremely
| hard, bordering impossible for most people, and it's also
| an active choice someone who's not already billionaire
| can make on their way there (so they can always be just
| enough away from being a billionaire).
|
| That's why to me it's like being in favor for a law
| against martians: it really doesn't concern anyone of us,
| so who cares?
| tivert wrote:
| > That's why to me it's like being in favor for a law
| against martians: it really doesn't concern anyone of us,
| so who cares?
|
| What do you mean? A billionaire committing massive fraud
| _definitely_ concerns us.
| kazinator wrote:
| [delayed]
| tromp wrote:
| Death penalty seems inherently barbaric as in practice you
| cannot avoid executing people who are not found to be innocent
| until years or decades later. Even if you think guilt can be
| proven beyond any doubt, I know of no jurisdiction with an
| error-free record.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| So you say it is barbaric not for executing someone, but for
| wrongly punishing someone. How is that different for a
| regular life sentence? Taking someone's liberties wrongly
| seems just as barbaric.
| tromp wrote:
| At least you can return their freedom and try to compensate
| them for the time unjustly spent in prison.
| keybored wrote:
| I don't know the specific of this case or what they do in East
| and South-East Asia. But we've had these discussions before.
| The point then is raised: say you have a white collar crime
| that downstream causes life-crippling financial misery for tens
| of thousands of people. On what grounds can one dismiss capital
| punishment for that crime as barbaric but then (presumably, by
| omission) not find that capital punishment for cold-blooded
| murder is barbaric?
| pavlov wrote:
| You're leaving out a lot of countries that impose death
| penalties for non-violent acts that are victimless and not even
| crimes in the West.
|
| For example adultery and apostasy:
|
| _"The following countries impose the death penalty for
| adultery: Afghanistan, Brunei,[1] Iran, Maldives, Mauritania,
| Nigeria, Pakistan[citation needed], Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
| Yemen, Sudan, Qatar."_
|
| _"As of July 2020, apostasy by Muslims (ridda) carries the
| death penalty in the following countries: Afghanistan, Brunei,
| Iran, the Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia
| (implicitly), the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen."_
|
| This is the height of state-sanctioned barbarism left in
| today's world.
| mavili wrote:
| As it happens quite often, you're mistaken about the apostasy
| part, don't know about the adultery one.
|
| Apostasy itself isn't punishable; it's when someone
| "deflects" to the enemy side and colludes with them. At that
| point it's the 'treason' aspect that carries the punishment,
| not because someone says they don't believe in something
| anymore.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| USA still has the death penalty?
| hollerith wrote:
| Yes, it does.
|
| But criminal justice in the US is mostly dispensed at the
| state level of government, and many of the 50 states do not
| ever impose the death penalty:
|
| https://dpic-
| cdn.org/production/images/StatesWithWithoutDP-M...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I am taking umbrage at your claim that adultery is a
| "victimless" crime.
|
| However, definitely not death penalty worthy, even if
| anything ever was!
| huytersd wrote:
| I don't know whether it's warranted but corruption is the
| primary reasons a lot of these third world countries have such
| a hard time pulling themselves out of the hole. The damage they
| cause to millions of lives is probably way more impactful than
| some two bit murderer.
| spxneo wrote:
| Isn't wiping out 42,000 families livelihood or 3% of your
| country's GDP not barbaric?
|
| Or is the exchange rate here not favourable to your standards?
| koala_man wrote:
| Some US states would hand down a mandatory lifetime sentence
| to someone robbing three families, but no jail time for
| someone robbing 42,000.
| blago wrote:
| The prevailing opinion is that the death penalty was handed
| down to provide leverage and incentivize restitution.
| Saigonautica wrote:
| That's always been my understanding as well. I recall some
| cases in the last few years where this resulted in quite a
| bit of the funds being recovered.
|
| Sadly I cannot remember the specific cases.
| mavili wrote:
| There we go again, a western "civilised" citizen calling a
| sentence barbaric because it was passed by a nation they don't
| like. It's called justice dude.
|
| You seem to belittle 'corruption' but it's actually root of a
| lot of evil.
| kak3a wrote:
| corruption or death penalty is barbaric?
| nimbius wrote:
| According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from
| February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion
| Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (PS2.3bn) in cash from the
| bank, and store it in her basement. The verdict requires her to
| return $27bn, a sum prosecutors said may never be recovered.
|
| she stole around 2% of Vietnam's GDP _annually._
|
| You just can't move this kind of money without the government
| noticing. She most likely fell out of favour for some other
| reason with the ruling party.
|
| moreover, Viet Nam is a communist country. It may seem
| difficult for western capitalists to reconcile since
| "victimless" and "non-violent" are the litmus for most
| prosecutions but sentencing the bourgeoise to the death penalty
| for embezzlement is absolutely in keeping with the party line
| and doctrine. in 2008 the PRC had a tainted milk scandal,
| during which time it tried, sentenced, and executed two high
| level corporate executives for the fraud.
| maxglute wrote:
| > 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (PS2.3bn) in
| cash from the bank, and store it in her basement
|
| For personal curiosity, largest dong note is 500k , that's
| 208 million bills. Very lazy Theydidthemath attempt but 500k
| dong is ~$20 USD. If you look up visiualizations of how much
| 1B of 100 USD notes are, usually palletized, 1B USD is 12
| pallets. 1T dong is 60 pallets. Her driver moved 120 pallets
| of dongs in her basement. ~480ft x 480ft / ~146m x 146m
| square tiled.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Honestly, I think these are the varieties of crimes where
| capital punishment _should_ apply - while a violent offender
| might be one day rehabilitated, someone who feels it's ok to
| loot billions at the expense of their fellow man deserves to
| suffer schaphism.
|
| The harm is infinitely greater - and we seemingly live in a
| world where this behaviour is more often than not rewarded with
| high office and plaudits.
| kazinator wrote:
| I have a different perspective.
|
| If someone commits _fraud_ to the tune of $27B, that mainly
| means they just outfoxed rich people out of their money.
|
| A lot more harm lies in a legally made $27B.
| Saigonautica wrote:
| Without this intending to be a comment on whether it is just or
| not, there's an interesting caveat to the law that might be of
| interest.
|
| De jure, here's an amount that the guilty party can repay to
| avoid the death penalty. I recall it being 3/4 of the amount
| stolen.
| virtualritz wrote:
| > Death penalty for corruption? That seems barbaric.
|
| I find this a 'curious' pov. If financial fraud is affecting
| savings of many thousands of people, where savings = lifetime
| spent toiling, a view one may dare take is that there is little
| difference in killing someone (essentially robbing them of the
| leftover lifetime).
|
| In a country like Vietnam, where about 13% of people pay into
| pensions at all [1], loosing your savings literally will
| shorten your life. Even if you're in those 13% btw, as you
| can't live off state-pensions[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_in_Vietnam#Funding
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensions_in_Vietnam#State_non-...
|
| EDIT: I like to add that I am against death penalty under any
| circumstances.
|
| But if you're in the US and are ok with death penalty there,
| I'd argue you should be, too, in the case at hand.
| yeknoda wrote:
| Death penalty serves multiple purposes
|
| 1. Remove from society, with no additional cost to society. 2.
| Signaling to dissuade new offenders.
|
| You can go one step further and punish the family, parents, and
| friends. Seems to be happening in the US for underage mass
| killers.
|
| It's a simple, effective, and low cost way to deal with crime
| of the highest magnitude. Why should it be off limits for
| corruption?
| kazinator wrote:
| Any component of a punishment that is intended to deter is
| wrong. They hypothetical future offenders supposedly being
| deterred by the punishment are not parties in the defendant's
| case. Therefore they have no place in the sentencing.
|
| Death penalty should be: take a life, pay with your life.
|
| There is no need to consider deterrence in any shape or form.
|
| The concept of deterrence being a reason for capital
| punishment only bolsters anti-capital-punishment arguments.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Note that she got a death sentence for fraud. It's... rough. (In
| my opinion.)
| spxneo wrote:
| Statements like this ignore the victims:
|
| - 3% of vietnam's GDP
|
| - Roughly the equivalent of an entire city losing their
| livelihood to one person
|
| - The trauma and ruin people around the victims will feel
|
| - Orphaned children, suicides, intragenerational trauma that
| will last for many rebirths.
|
| It's the same cavalier attitude I see towards victims of SBF on
| this forum. "Its their fault", "they were asking for it".
|
| You have compassion for the perpetrator but not the victims who
| are dead and are going to end up dead.
|
| I only pray that you will not experience the pain of being
| manipulated and scammed. It's truly awful because I experienced
| it.
|
| I know some religions/SF bay cults try to justify it but at the
| end of the day its the lapse in responsibility and compassion,
| the same disregard for others but your own.
| water-data-dude wrote:
| I recognize that they've done a LOT of harm, but death is a
| harsh punishment under almost any circumstances. The death
| penalty seems like one of those ideological issues where
| people fall on one side or the other, and they pretty much
| stay on that side.
|
| My perspective is: if the point is to dissuade people from
| committing crimes like this, it seems like a lengthy prison
| sentence would achieve the same thing. The harm has already
| been done, and killing them doesn't fix anything. Death is
| just so damn final.
| pksebben wrote:
| I'm sort of ambivalent about the death penalty, and I'm
| more than skeptical about punishment-based behavior
| mitigation in general.
|
| That said, whatever the severity of penalty you assign to
| direct forms of (mass) murder ought to apply to the
| indirect forms when they're scaled up far enough.
|
| Like, that capital represents the real possibility of
| avoiding starvation for a certain percent of the population
| (many of them children).
|
| Similarly, I look at folks like the Sacklers and think that
| whatever we do to a school shooter ought to be done to
| them. They knew full well what the impact of their behavior
| was going to be and thought, "fuck 'em. Let 'em die".
| That's just as bad if not worse than a troubled teen
| picking up an assault rifle.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > I look at folks like the Sacklers and think that
| whatever we do to a school shooter ought to be done to
| them.
|
| Sometimes I wonder why it's mostly poor people who are
| executed in the US. One reason is, we don't punish rich
| people crimes with the same severity. If you look at the
| list of capital crimes in e.g. California, most of them
| involve specific circumstances around single murders.
| It's not hard to imagine white collar crimes which cause
| an order of magnitude more damage to society.
|
| Whether these crimes need to be punished with the death
| penalty is a different question I think you and I would
| not agree on, but I would concede if it meant stricter
| punishments for white collar criminals. The Sacklers are
| far more evil than most of the men sitting on death row
| now.
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| You need to realize that non-zero people probably committed
| suicide becomes of lost money, right?
|
| The line of death being harsh punishment in any
| circumstance is simply not true.
|
| I.e., by contraditory, if it is true that "death is too
| harsh" is true, then it should reasonably deter "bad guys".
|
| Did that happen?
|
| No
|
| It did not happen in history, now; and it wont happen in
| any foreseeable further
| jajko wrote:
| It is harsh and meant to be, a message to all opponents and
| general population about strength of regime. All
| dictatorships do it regularly, iran, saudi arabia, russia
| etc.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| How many percentage points of an entire country's economy would
| you say you need to steal before it's deserving of the highest
| form of punishment?
| sickofparadox wrote:
| One certainly cannot claim that Vietnam treats white collar crime
| with the same detached disdain that the US does.
| retrac wrote:
| Corruption purges in Leninist states are always political. In
| many cases, the officials and executives purged are, in fact,
| corrupt, and breaking domestic law. But the political element
| is really unavoidable. These serve as demonstrations of the
| state's power, and its legitimacy. Sort of a paradox there - if
| the state is so powerful and legitimate, how did such a massive
| scale of embezzlement go on for so long? Never mind that, let's
| watch the execution.
|
| One might even say, particularly at the highest level, that
| these matters are also political in constitutional republics,
| like the USA. How aggressively CEOs get prosecuted, does depend
| on the executive investigating and prosecuting offenders, and
| whether Congress wants to pass stricter laws. One
| interpretation, is that the American state, does not feel the
| need to demonstrate its authority in such a dramatic way.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Corruption purges in Leninist states are always
| political... How aggressively CEOs get prosecuted, does
| depend on the executive investigating and prosecuting
| offenders, and whether Congress wants to pass stricter laws
|
| Do you have a source for these ideas, or are they your own? I
| can't speak for everyone of course but for myself and any of
| the many people I've had in-depth conversations with, none of
| us generally wonder how embezzlement happened in the first
| place, regardless of length, instead we marvel at the utter
| lack of any consequences for the convicted individual. In
| this way the state's power is far, far more illegitimized by
| the fact that it's apparently fine with people stealing
| incredible sums of money either from itself or from it's
| citizens and seems content to levy meaningless fines on the
| perpetrator after the fact, if even that.
|
| (or, in my leftier and more conspiratorial groups, that the
| weakness of the state to prosecute financial crimes is a
| direct result of the system being designed by rich people to
| facilitate the activities of other rich people, but I
| digress)
|
| The only ones in recent memory I can recall are Sam Bankman-
| Fried, which is still ongoing, and Elizabeth Holmes, both of
| whom seemed to have committed the proper crime of stealing
| _from other rich people,_ whereas the ones who steal from the
| working /middle class are left largely untouched. A
| coincidence I'm sure. Where Government funds land in terms of
| "is this rich people's money or poor people's money" is up to
| the reader of the comment to determine, that one's
| prosecution rate does seem to trend more political, as tons
| of incredibly wealthy people are milking the government cow
| for absolutely mind-bending amounts of money and delivering
| basically nothing.
|
| > One interpretation, is that the American state, does not
| feel the need to demonstrate its authority in such a dramatic
| way.
|
| Maybe it should feel that need, since the lion's share of
| it's population on either side of the political spectrum
| thinks of the government as largely a joke. But they've also
| dis-empowered us to such a degree that our opinion on them
| largely doesn't matter anyway, so, on it goes.
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| > Corruption purges in Leninist states are always political.
|
| This is true to a certain extent.
|
| But this is actually truer here in democracy country than
| authoritarian country.
|
| Think about it. In authoritarian country, corruption is part
| of the system that has internal regulation.
|
| While here in democratic country, corruption has no explicit
| definition. It's just a matter of if your enemy sees
| corruption attackable. That makes punishing corruption in
| democratic country entirely political driven.
|
| This phenomenone happens on industry: like Boeing, it has
| doged punishment until political resentment is no longer
| containable. It happens to high power, as epstain's case; and
| government officials Trump and Biden's family for example.
| skissane wrote:
| > While here in democratic country, corruption has no
| explicit definition. It's just a matter of if your enemy
| sees corruption attackable. That makes punishing corruption
| in democratic country entirely political driven.
|
| Some democratic countries have independent apolitical anti-
| corruption agencies. For example, the Australian state of
| New South Wales has an Independent Commission Against
| Corruption (ICAC) which is headed by a judge. Few seriously
| argue it is politically motivated, although it has caused
| controversy by destroying the careers of politicians over
| what some see as relatively minor offences (e.g. in 2014,
| the state Premier who was forced to resign because he gave
| it false testimony over a $3,000 bottle of wine, although
| he insisted the falsehood was due to forgetfulness not
| intentional lying)
|
| It also has an official definition of corruption, and
| subjects of investigation can challenge in the courts
| whether the investigation is consistent with that
| definition. In 2015, a senior prosecutor succeeded in
| getting a ruling from Australia's highest court that ICAC
| had overstepped its authority in investigating her for a
| personal matter unrelated to her job as a prosecutor (she
| had been recorded on a wiretap giving advice to her son's
| girlfriend on how to evade a police investigation into a
| traffic accident). However, legislators subsequently
| amended the definition, effectively overturning that court
| judgement.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > One interpretation, is that the American state, does not
| feel the need to demonstrate its authority in such a dramatic
| way
|
| Punishing crimes isn't about demonstrating authority, it's
| about creating incentives against committing those crimes. If
| anything, the message the US tends to give is that corruption
| is an acceptable cost of doing business.
| smcl wrote:
| Enormous raised eyebrow at describing Vietnam as "Leninist"
| retrac wrote:
| Vietnam is ruled by a Marxist-Leninist party. One-party
| rule, vanguardist, officially Marxist, ruling allegedly for
| the benefit of the workers. Similar to contemporary China,
| Cuba, or the late USSR. What term would you prefer, if not
| (Marxist-)Leninist, to describe this type of state?
| jeffbee wrote:
| By disdain you meant reverence.
| alephnerd wrote:
| This is political infighting. They aren't actually cracking
| down on corruption.
|
| The faction Truong My Lan supported has basically been purged
| by Nguyen Phu Trong and To Lam's factions
|
| There's been a political purge happening in Vietnam since COVID
| happened
|
| An internal conflict began brewing between the Northern VCP
| (supported by the VinGroup billionaire who is also from
| Vietnamese Military royalty), Southern VCP (supported by this
| billionaire), the Army (they own Vietnam's largest telco and
| most of the PSUs), and the Ministry of Public Security (they
| have the dirt on everybody and are the actual enforcers in
| Vietnam) around 2021-22
| spxneo wrote:
| this is just like the fusion of monopolists and military
| lineage in South Korea in the 60s up until early 90s. They
| marry each other, one group controls violence, the other
| group controls market and produces stuff the West wants which
| in turn looks away from the violence. It was never about
| democracy but control.
| alephnerd wrote:
| EXACTLY!!!!!!
|
| This is why Korean boomers love investing and living in
| Vietnam.
|
| It's literally how Korea used to feel in the 1970-80s.
|
| The entire economy in VN is basically owned by Korean
| Chaebols like Lotte after they were kicked out of China in
| 2015-17 due to a trade war.
|
| It's 60-40 Chaebols-Local Oligarchs
|
| And the VCP is fairly worried that a 1980s SK or 1990s PRC
| style democracy movement might arise, because unlike China
| today, the Vietnamese government is very incompetent and
| pays their civil servants shit ($200/mo for senior govt
| doctors for example, $600/mo for the head of the Politburo,
| most soldiers are abused and unpaid conscripts), and
| western services like FB cannot be cracked down because it
| will scare western investors away and because most of the
| country is still dependent on the remittences of the
| 2nd-3rd gen diaspora living in North America and Eastern
| Europe, and the migrant workers in JP/SK/TW/CN.
|
| There's a reason why KDramas are so popular in VN. It isn't
| just because of Hallyu wave (though that plays a role too)
| but also because the exact same kind of problems and
| mentality that Koreans have going from third world to first
| world are faced by Vietnamese as well.
|
| Vietnam is at the same position as Korea was in the
| 1970s-80s essentially.
| spxneo wrote:
| We come full circle. South Korean chaebols got rich off
| Vietnam War (korean marine mercenaries for US) and now
| they get rich off capitalizing Vietnam.
|
| I see lot of Korean-Vietnamese couples/biracial children
| as well. Crazy how much sway a small group of people have
| (in both countries).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Well, supposedly they borrowed Pakistan's five-year plan
| around then, so it makes sense
| spxneo wrote:
| The 5 year economic model was created in Manchukuo which
| existed decades before Pakistan. Pakistan did not come up
| with it they executed it rather very poorly.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I don't think you can make generalizations like that from one
| case.
|
| Given the nature of one-party states, it is plausible that the
| hammer swung hard on her because she was at the losing end of
| some power struggle, or closely associated with some high
| politician who lost in a power struggle.
| renewiltord wrote:
| In these countries, you reward your agents heavily when they
| get you into power. Likewise, when you're in power, you whack
| your opposition's agents. These tools are just weapons in a
| political struggle usually.
|
| Seeing how the US operates, I believe the same happens here,
| but in a much more sophisticated manner using tools available
| for those channels (allocating no-bid contracts, Supreme Court
| seats, issuing laws to protect incumbents).
|
| Unlike the US, where the battle lines are static because
| defenders are well entrenched, many of these countries have
| political wars that involve far reaching forays into each
| others' territory so they get to whack crucial lieutenants of
| the other side.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I've travelled to Vietnam a lot over the past couple years for
| work and my SO's family, and there is a lot of rot in the VN
| economy that has finally caught up to it.
|
| Most of the growth could be attributed to Korean, Japanese, and
| Chinese conglomerates spending a LOT of money moving factories
| from China to VN in the 2014-22 period after China started trade
| wars with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US.
|
| While this lead to massive capital expenditures, the average
| Vietnamese person's life didn't change too drastically, as most
| of the investments were located in Hanoi (Chinese) or HCMC
| (Korean+Japanese) and only captured by the capital owning class.
| While there are more FMCGs and brands now, almost everything has
| a luxury tax on it or is imported from the US, Thailand, or South
| Korea, and even Temu quality clothes cost as much as they would
| in the US, and furthermore - rent is insanely high in HCMC and
| Hanoi, so 50-60% of your income is spent on rent alone.
|
| Furthermore, party apparatchiks decided to maximize the graft
| they could partake in by investing heavily in boondoggle hotel
| and apartment projects (similar to the Ghost cities you see in
| China and India).
|
| When the COVID pandemic happened, the gravy train ended.
|
| Vietnam followed a zero-covid policy that caused migrant workers
| to return to their hometowns, and there was a massive corruption
| scandal around COVID testing infrastructure and repatriating
| Vietnamese migrant workers from abroad.
|
| This was also around the time an internal conflict began brewing
| between the Northern VCP (supported by the VinGroup billionaire
| who is also from Vietnamese Military royalty), Southern VCP
| (supported by this billionaire), the Army (they own Vietnam's
| largest telco and most of the PSUs), and the Ministry of Public
| Security (they have the dirt on everybody and are the actual
| enforcers in Vietnam).
|
| Basically, the MPS backed the Northern faction and won this
| round, and the Army stayed out of this fight in order to keep
| making money.
|
| That said, all this upper level turmoil (under the guise of a
| corruption purge) dented investor confidence recently, along with
| some very prominent infrastructure collapses like the power
| outages and the internet slowdowns.
|
| For example, this past Tet people didn't spend as much on
| fireworks or red money compared to the 2023 Tet, real estate
| projects have started slowing down, and it's not uncommon to see
| abandoned construction projects once you leave HCMC or Hanoi.
|
| If you're part of the expat Bui Vien/D1/Thao Dien scene you
| wouldn't notice this kind of stuff (they're too busy huffing
| balloons/nitrous despite it being banned in VN leaving surgeons
| to physically restrain patients), but once you go to "real"
| Saigon (eg. D10, D8) let alone outside of HCMC/Hanoi/DaNang/DaLat
| these issues become very prominent.
|
| This is a fairly good overview of some of the changes I've (or
| moreso my SO) been noticing -
| https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/vietnam-the-purge
| twojobsoneboss wrote:
| This is the kind of insider comment HN needs more of!
| spxneo wrote:
| weird, this thread no longer appears on the front page...so i
| guess we won't hear anymore insider comments like this on
| Vietnam
| spxneo wrote:
| lot to unpack here but what i been told by my vietnamese
| coworkers is that this is "vietnamese pig butchering" (not like
| the one you hear about involving Tether).
|
| They let fraudsters (pigs) accumulate capital by any means.
| Then they butcher it for political and financial capital.
| Government looks like a hero and they are able to keep the
| lights on.
|
| In China, this has been going on for a while (ex. evergrande,
| HNA, Silicon Valley Bank, Tether) and online sleuths have
| uncovered crypto projects/funding from China are also another
| "western pig butchering".
|
| SBF, Do Kwon are similar to Truong My Lan in that they are also
| "useful pigs" with many smaller "pigs" below them pulling
| capital into a "jurisdiction tor network". Some pigs are on the
| spectrum and do not require greed as motivation, simply the
| fame and recognition from having created "something" for other
| pigs is enough.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > They let fraudsters (pigs) accumulate capital by any means.
| Then they butcher it for political and financial capital.
| Government looks like a hero and they are able to keep the
| lights on.
|
| Pretty much. This makes To Lam and Nguyen Phu Trong's faction
| look like saviors. Nguyen Phu Trong is too old to take the
| top seat, so this is basically paving the way to make To Lam
| the leader of VN by gaining public sympathy AND destroying
| any potential opposition from the Southern VCP and their
| affiliated oligarchs.
|
| This is literally Xi's corruption crackdown in 2016 all over
| again, except Vietnam in the 2020s is nowhere near as rich as
| China was in the 2010s, so all this backstabbing bs has
| scared foreign investors away (even I backed out of funding
| an interesting VN product because of this - ik how China and
| India use the CCDI and ED, VN ain't worth that level of
| headache).
| spxneo wrote:
| Are these northerners or southerners? Who are the "ruling
| elite" of Vietnam?
|
| In South Korea, one particular region has produced 20 out
| of 22 presidents.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > ruling elite
|
| There are 4 main factions:
|
| Northern VCP - the original VCP founded by Ho Chi Minh,
| and ruled Hanoi since 1956. The current GenSec of the
| Vietnamese Politburo is from this faction and from that
| era.
|
| Southern VCP - the more business minded and ethnic
| Chinese/Hoa cadre of the VCP. The last president and most
| of the purged cadre are from this group.
|
| PAVN - the Vietnamese Army. they have been mollified by
| being given control of all the key sectors of the
| Vietnamese economy. Viettel (Vietnam's Telco) is owned by
| them and VinGroup's founder and CEO is the son of PAVN
| royalty
|
| MPS - Vietnam's KGB. they hold the actual cards in
| Vietnam. whenever you go to any town, village, or city in
| Vietnam the biggest building is always the MPS building
| (even the local VCP's building is smaller).
|
| The SCB chick was close with the Southern VCP faction, as
| was most of the leadership in Vietnam from 2012ish-2022.
| Due to the COVID slowdown and public anger against
| corruption, the Northern VCP decided to step in and cut
| the oligarchs and business minded types back to the
| ground. The PAVN kept out of this fray because they're
| making a lot of money, and the MPS backed the Northern
| faction.
| spxneo wrote:
| i would definitely watch netflix series on this, its
| fascinating!
| alephnerd wrote:
| Kdramas, JDramas, Turkish Dramas, Indian OTTs, and HBO
| Eastern Europe (Umbre, Aranyelet) touch these kind of
| themes a lot.
|
| It's a common problem in developing and newly developed
| countries
| gottorf wrote:
| The region in question (Gyeongsang-do, split into two
| provinces in modern South Korean administration) was also
| the home ground of the Kingdom of Silla, which was
| arguably the first polity that unified the Korean
| peninsula, almost 1400 years ago. It shows how sticky
| these things can be.
| d3vmax wrote:
| I was all with you until you mentioned,
|
| "similar to the Ghost cities you see in China and India"
|
| I don't think India has ghost cities in the way you mean.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > I don't think India has ghost cities in the way you mean
|
| There are plenty. Lots of Indian developers collapse due to
| corruption tangles or inability to secure financing, for
| example Jaypee Wish Town in NOIDA [0] or the New Chandigarh
| project in Punjab [1]
|
| Builders will take down payments from buyers and start
| construction, but might run out of money, get caught up in
| some corruption scandal, or fail financial compliance checks
| now that India has been cracking down on bad loans after the
| IL&FS almost collapsed in 2018.
|
| Luckily, India had UChicago and Harvard trained economic
| policymakers like Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, and
| Krishnamurthy Subramanian (guys who if they decided to take
| American citizenship could have become head of the IMF or WB
| like their peers Ajay Banga and Gita Gopinath) reform the
| entire banking and finance sector in India. (And in all
| honestly, it looks like India might hit a similar bust in the
| next couple years now that the CEA is politically selected
| backbenchers now)
|
| Vietnam has hit the exact same hurdle India's economy hit in
| the 2010-17 stagflation and China during the 2015-16
| financial crisis - high capex spending but very low consumer
| spending leaving it open to backlash caused by FDI
| variability.
|
| Lots of middle class Vietnamese have purchased condos or
| houses, but the builders collapsed or are in receivership.
| SCB (Truong's bank) is one of those banks financing these
| projects.
|
| Unlike China or India, the backbench of experienced
| policymakers in Vietnam is kinda empty, as most development
| in the 1980s-2000s was done by international development
| agencies, and the rest was basically privatized and done by
| Korean, Japanese, and Chinese companies (eg. The incomplete
| subway systems in HCMC and Hanoi built by Japan and China
| respectively). And unlike China, Vietnam is still fairly
| early in the value chain with major players like Intel
| considering leaving [2], and unlike India, Vietnam doesn't
| have a strong consumer or tertiary sector that can cushion
| the blow [3]
|
| A similar stagnation hit China in the 1990s after the
| Tiannamen Square massacre, but was resolved by allowing
| laisse faire capitalism and rolling out the red carpet for
| foreign and local investors, but the winning faction in this
| battle is much more skeptical of the anarcho-capitalism that
| arose in Vietnam in the 2010s.
|
| [0] - https://www.thequint.com/my-report/i-dont-know-if-ill-
| get-ou...
|
| [1] - https://www.gmada.gov.in/en/new-chandigarh
|
| [2] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-shelves-
| planned-chi...
|
| [3] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PRVT.ZS?loc
| ation...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Did Rajan try and stop demonetization?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Rajan and Arvind Subramanian were opposed. Krishnamurthy
| Subramanian (Rajan's former doctoral student from decades
| ago and now Executive Director at the IMF) supported it.
| My hunch is Krishnamurthy's support came because he
| worked closely with Luigi Zingales when they were at
| UChicago, and Zingales' economic philosophy strongly
| supported these kinds of shocks, plus it allowed
| Krishnamurthy to climb up the ladder.
|
| Demonetization was brutal, but at least it pushed
| hundreds of millions from being unbanked to banked, thus
| making it easier to enforce taxation (while also
| converting black money into white money).
|
| A similar shock will be needed for both India and
| Pakistan to revoke the Land Acquisition Act (the British
| holdover which has held back both countries), as well as
| to do a judicial overhaul.
|
| This is a good overview of the economic reforms India
| needs to do to actually become a competitive economy -
| https://indiareforms.csis.org/
| gooftop wrote:
| I had the exact same reaction as d3vmax - and quoting one
| paywalled article about a failed builder does not make
| "ghost cities" a thing in India. Yes there are fraudsters
| who cheat people and never build anything, but India does
| not have the same kind of ghost cities that China does.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Jaypee Group is not a small builder.
|
| It used to be the largest builder in North India, but
| they were very close to Akilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi
| Party.
|
| After BJP won the state elections in 2017, Jaypee (which
| was already struggling with finances) lost a number of
| tenders in NOIDA, loans were called, and they along with
| other similar builders caused IL&FS to become insolvent.
|
| It's very similar to the Ghost Cities you'd see in China
| in the 2000s
|
| Also, India has Google Street View. Go explore OMAXE New
| Chandigarh, Sector 128, Kharar, etc.
|
| Lots of half built buildings in middle India.
|
| And this is why PMAY-U is being pushed so hard by all
| parties in India - it's an easy way to bail out builders
| without breaking financial laws.
| somberi wrote:
| This entry from Wikipedia was impactful:
|
| "Lan's embezzlement of $12.5 billion equals about three percent
| of Vietnam's total GDP for 2022."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C6%B0%C6%A1ng_M%E1%BB%B9_La....
|
| King Lear comes to mind:
|
| As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
|
| They kill us for their sport.
| speedylight wrote:
| Yeah Vietnam has a GDP of $408.8 Billion, a fraud of this
| magnitude is probably tantamount to treason.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It was over 11 years, so you'd compare to the GDP for the last
| 11 years.
|
| Still huge, but not ~7% of GDP huge.
|
| It was closer to ~0.5% of GDP per year for 11 years.
|
| This is probably typical in countries without really strong
| institutions. Vietnam isn't exactly a 3rd world country...
|
| The amount of fraud going on in 3rd world countries (as a % of
| GDP) is mind boggling.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Companies are switching China for Vietnam, India, Indonesia.
|
| One of the reasons is fear of this sort of thing.
|
| Makes me wonder if the same problems will pop up in the new
| destinations.
| pyth0 wrote:
| They could also avoid this sort of thing by not doing fraud.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > One of the reasons is fear of this sort of thing.
|
| Good? If you're planning to embezzle tens of billions of
| dollars, you probably should be scared of consequences.
| alephnerd wrote:
| These are the standard kinds of problems that happen in every
| developing country.
|
| So long as it's out in the open it's not a big deal.
|
| Most Western commentators had a decent view of what's going on
| in China because there is a lot of business reporting there.
|
| In Vietnam's case, most foreign business reporting is in
| Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, as SK, Japan, Taiwan, and PRC
| are the biggest FDI sources in VN.
|
| For Korean and Taiwanese investors, this isn't a big deal, as
| most dealt with similar stuff in 1970s-2000s Korea and Taiwan,
| as did Japanese who invested heavily in Korea, Taiwan, and PRC.
|
| Western investors on the other hand, will be much more
| skittish, and won't invest until the regional investors from
| the countries mentioned above are more established in VN.
| kazinator wrote:
| So a human life is worth somewhere between $0 and $27B in
| Vietnam. Useful to know.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Anywhere in the developing world. Life is worthless. This is
| why my parents immigrated to America.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Yeah, they found keeping inmates alive is lucrative:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-
| wo...
| alephnerd wrote:
| Try dealing with Vietnam or Indian police as a Westerner
| "carrying" drugs.
|
| You better pay up or you might find yourself with a bullet
| in your head in a ditch.
|
| Oh, and body cams are not a thing.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Why is it that every site with a similar headline is reporting a
| different amount of billions? Wonder if they are all converting
| it differently and then using the wrong countries units or
| something.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Because most western news outlets are crap at Tieng Viet.
|
| The BBC headline is correct (as they hired a lot of Vietnamese
| speaking journalists, some of whom have been targeted for
| assasination and kidnapping by the Vietnamese govt [0]).
|
| The amount stolen was $44B. She needs to return $27B to not be
| executed.
|
| [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/sep/30/bbc-
| accused-of...
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