In the past few minutes, a court in Vietnam has sentenced a wealthy property developer to death for defrauding a bank of billions of dollars.

在過去幾分鐘裡，越南一家法院以詐騙銀行數十億美元的罪名判處一名富有的房地產開發商死刑。

Sixty-seven-year-old Truong My Lan was found guilty of embezzlement, bribing state officials and violating bank lending regulations.

67 歲的張美蘭被認定犯有挪用公款、賄賂國家官員和違反銀行貸款規定等罪行。

After she used her hidden ownership of the Saigon Commercial Bank to channel $44 billion of loans to her own companies. It's been described as one of the greatest bank frauds in history.

在她利用對西貢商業銀行的隱蔽所有權向自己的公司發放了 440 億美元貸款後，這被稱為歷史上最大的銀行欺詐案之一。

Well, for more on this, we can go straight to Bangkok and join our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.

欲瞭解更多詳情，我們可以直接前往曼谷，與我們的東南亞記者聯繫喬納森-海德。

First of all, Jonathan, if you could just tell us a little bit more about what the court said today and the background to this case.

首先，喬納森，請你向我們介紹一下法庭今天的判決以及本案的背景。

Well, the court's been giving enormous amounts of detail about this case through its five weeks.

在這五週的時間裡，法庭對此案做了大量的詳細說明。

Everyone in Vietnam knows a lot about it.

在越南，每個人都對它瞭如指掌。

That's quite unusual there.

這很不尋常。

They've wanted the public to know about this case.

他們想讓公眾瞭解這個案子。

It is extraordinary.

這是非同尋常的。

The amounts of money are absolutely staggering.

金額絕對驚人。

We're talking about a significant chunk of Vietnam's GDP that this woman was able to siphon off over 11 years through these secretly channeled loans that went through a whole bunch of front companies and proxies to her own companies.

我們說的是，這個女人通過這些祕密管道獲得的貸款，經過一大堆幌子公司和代理公司，在 11 年時間裡抽走了越南國內生產總值的一大部分。

The prosecutors believe that of that $44 billion, perhaps $27 billion may never be recovered.

檢察官認為，在這 440 億美元中，可能有 270 億美元永遠無法收回。

That is a staggering loss and will be very, very tough for the state bank to make up in terms of saving the bank.

這是一個驚人的損失，國家銀行要彌補這一損失，挽救銀行將非常非常困難。

Really, the authorities have sort of blamed Truong My Lan and have talked about the way in which she was bribing officials and the kind of sophistication of this network.

事實上，當局將責任歸咎於鍾美蘭，並談到了她賄賂官員的方式以及這個網絡的複雜程度。

And really, it is part of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign that's been going for several years led by the communist authorities who say they're determined to stamp it out.

實際上，這是共產黨當局上司的持續數年的反腐運動的一部分，共產黨當局說他們決心剷除腐敗。

But of course, it does raise a lot of questions, which is, how was it that this woman, she's very high profile, she's one of the biggest property owners in Vietnam, how was she able to do that for 11 years?

當然，這也引發了很多問題，那就是這位女士是如何做到的，她非常引人注目，她是越南最大的業主之一，她是如何做到這一點長達 11 年之久的？

And of course, officially, the authorities say, well, she was paying off this person and that and hiding this and that.

當然，官方的說法是，她賄賂了這個人那個人，隱瞞了這個那個。

But it is extraordinary that it went on for 11 years without being stopped.

但令人驚訝的是，這種情況持續了 11 年而沒有被制止。

And I think those questions still hang over whether the Vietnamese authorities are capable of reining in this kind of fraud.

我認為這些問題仍然懸而未決，越南當局是否有能力遏制這種欺詐行為。

And Jonathan, you say that this was a trial that was followed by so many people in Vietnam and Truong My Lan is a well-known property developer in the country, but now she faces the death penalty.

喬納森，你說這是越南很多人關注的一次審判，張美蘭是越南著名的房地產開發商，但現在她面臨死刑。

That itself is extraordinary.

這本身就非同尋常。

Normally, the death penalty is not usually handed down on women, but I think this case was so exceptional in terms of its scale and the damage it's done to Vietnam's finances, they probably felt they needed to make an example of her.

通常情況下，女性通常不會被判處死刑，但我認為，就其規模和對越南財政造成的損害而言，這起案件非常特殊，他們可能覺得有必要殺一儆百。

They may also be trying to encourage her to give as much money back as they can get her to do.

他們可能還想鼓勵她儘可能多地還錢。

This is something the other 80 defendants in court today have largely done.

今天法庭上的其他 80 名被告基本上都做到了這一點。

They're all more minor, of course, but these are all the people accused of conspiring with her, including, for example, a chief inspector at the state bank who was bribed $5 million, according to prosecutors, in order to look the other way.

當然，這些都是比較次要的，但這些人都被指控與她共謀，其中包括，例如，據檢察官稱，國家銀行的一名首席檢查員為了睜一隻眼閉一隻眼，被賄賂了500萬美元。

They've all pleaded guilty and offered to bring back as much money as they can.

他們都認罪了，並表示會盡可能多地把錢還回來。

I think the state believes that Truong My Lan must have far more assets that she can return to the state to try and make up this massive hole in this bank's finances.

我認為，越南政府認為張美蘭一定有更多的資產可以歸還給國家，以彌補這家銀行財務上的巨大漏洞。

OK, Jonathan Head in Bangkok, watching that huge trial in Vietnam and that verdict for us, thank you very much.

好的，喬納森-海德在曼谷，為我們關注越南的這起重大審判和判決，非常感謝。

And Jonathan's written an analysis piece on the BBC News website with more background to that.

喬納森在 BBC 新聞網站上撰寫了一篇分析文章，介紹了更多相關背景。