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, the maximum prosecutors had requested, came at a time of public anger against bankers who had shown uninhibited avarice before the financial collapse. The punishment was almost unanimously hailed: Finally, at least one corrupt financier had gotten his comeuppance.
"The sentence imposed today recognizes the significance of Bernard Madoff's crimes," the prosecuting U.S. attorney said. The judge called Madoff's crimes "extraordinarily evil."
By Vietnamese standards, Madoff got off easy.
In the past 5 months, at least three Vietnamese bankers have been sentenced to death - though their crimes amount to just 1 % of Madoff's haul.
Last month, 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 in kickbacks. His death sentence follows similar punishments meted out to 2 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. China also executes those convicted of economic crimes, though it's unclear how many.
In Vietnam, executions have historically been gruesome. A firing squad stuffs the convicted's mouth with lemons. Then, if customs described by Death Penalty Worldwide are true, he's tied to a pole and shot by 5 to 7 men. "As the prisoner is dying," the organization reports, "an officer fires a pistol shot through the condemned's ear."
The country has recently tried to switch to lethal injections, but as GlobalPost's Patrick Winn reports, that plan has been derailed by the European Union, which doesn't ship chemicals used in executions to countries that administer capital justice.
So do corrupt bankers deserve a firing squad? In Vietnam, yes. Under the nation's penal code, there are 29 offenses that constitute such reprisal, and included in that number are 5 economic crimes: fraud, embezzlement, smuggling, counterfeiting and offering bribes. Drug crimes are also punishable by death, according to Amnesty International.
In 2003, the business of sentencing corrupt bankers to death was booming. That year, 7 financiers got that punishment. Over the next 3 years, 5 other bankers were executed.
What becomes clear upon reviewing the cases is that what warrants death in Vietnam would only be years in prison - or no prison at all - in the United States. One man failed to repay $6 million in loans. Another woman got it because she embezzled $658,000. Another man was sent to death row for just $90,000.
It's unclear how many have been executed. Vietnam, like China, has a notoriously opaque capital punishment system. In January 2004, the government decreed that statistics on executions were a "state secret." Still, according to The Associated Press, there are currently 678 people languishing on the country's death row.
Outside observers say the executions are more show than deterrence. Vietnam, according to Transparency International, is a nation of endemic corruption.
"It's a message to those in this game to be less greedy and that business as usual is getting out of hand," Adam McCarty, an economist in Hanoi, told Global Post. "The message to people in the system is this: Your chances of getting caught are increasing. Don't just rely on big people above you. Because some of these [men] would have had big people above them. And it didn't help them."
Source: Washington Post, April 5, 2014
Vietnam court upholds death sentence to Thai drug mule
The Supreme People's Court, Vietnam's highest court, on Friday upheld the death sentence to a Thai woman for smuggling nearly 2 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil to Vietnam 2 years ago.
Chaimongkol Suracha, 32, was sentenced to death last August by a Ho Chi Minh City court on charge of "illegally transporting drugs."
Chaimongkol told the court that a compatriot introduced her to a man named Mieara who he said would help her land a job early August 2012, after she graduated from college.
On August 12, 2012, Mieara took her to Vietnam to meet the manager of an automobile export company, but then said the company had a job vacancy in Brazil, so they took a flight to the South American nation that night.
When they arrived in Brazil, Mieara gave her US$1,000 for expenses and left.
Chaimongkol said she was watched by another African man.
On August 28, 2012, 1 other African men told her to return to Vietnam to meet the manager of the car company and get the job Mieara had earlier promised.
The men gave her 1 photo albums, saying someone would meet her to receive the albums in Vietnam.
Chaimongkol was arrested October 1, 2012 at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC, after Vietnamese customs officers discovered cocaine in the 2 albums.
The cocaine wrapped in 4 packs weighed more than 1.98 kilograms.
Chaimongkol told investigators and the judge that she did not know that the albums contained drugs.
In the appeal trail, she begged for mercy saying she had children.
But the judges said given the huge the amount of drugs she smuggled, the death sentence was justified.
Death penalty statistics are not released in Vietnam, but the punishment is handed down most frequently to those convicted of murder or drug-trafficking.
Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine face the death penalty.
The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death.
Vietnam officially switched from the firing squad to lethal injection in November 2011. But it was not until last August that the country executed its 1st prisoner with the new method due to the unavailability of drugs used for lethal injections.
There are currently over 500 people on the death row in Vietnam.
Source: Thanh Nien News, April 5, 2014
