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Vietnams punishment for corrupt bankers: Death
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post


Washington Post, April 4, 2014
Posted: January 11th, 2015
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/04...

On June 29, 2009, upon conviction of running a Ponzi scheme that bamboozled investors of at least $18 billion, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. The sentence ... came at a time of public anger against bankers, [and] was almost unanimously hailed: Finally, at least one corrupt financier had gotten his comeuppance. The judge called Madoffs crimes extraordinarily evil. By Vietnamese standards, Madoff got off easy. In the past five months, at least three Vietnamese bankers have been sentenced to death though their crimes amount to just 1 percent of Madoffs haul. a 57-year-old director of a Vietnam Development Bank was sentenced to death after he and 12 others approved counterfeit loans in the amount of $89 million. For inking those contracts, he got a BMW, a diamond ring, and $5.5 million. His death sentence follows similar punishments meted out to two other bankers: One was sent to death row in November for his part in a $25 million scam, and the other, banker Duong Chi Dung, got his in December. The sentences offer a sharp contrast between how the West handles financial crimes prison terms, sometimes just a fine and how some East Asian countries do it. What warrants death in Vietnam would only be years in prison or no prison at all in the United States.

Note: An interactive map of global corruption is available online from Transparency International. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about widespread corruption in government and banking and finance.


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