On May 15, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City continued the appeal trial of defendant Nguyen Thai Luyen (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Real Estate JSC) and his accomplices for defrauding more than 4,000 customers into buying "ghost" projects.

After a week of trial, yesterday the court moved to the debate stage. At the court, the panel of judges announced that they had received a receipt from the Ho Chi Minh City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department stating that Mr. Le Viet An paid on behalf of the defendant Vo Thi Thanh Mai (defendant Luyen's wife) 6 billion VND for money laundering and 200 million VND for fraud and appropriation of property. At the same time, Mr. An also paid 200 million VND to the defendant Nguyen Thai Luyen to remedy the consequences. In total, Mr. An paid 6.4 billion VND on behalf of the defendant Luyen and his wife.

Therefore, the representative of the Procuracy requested the court to reduce the sentence for defendant Mai, sentencing him to 25-27 years in prison for both fraud and money laundering (the first instance sentence was 30 years in prison). Defendant Luyen was still recommended to maintain the original sentence of the first instance with a life sentence because the consequences he caused were particularly serious.

In addition, some defendants asked for a reduction in their sentences, having paid from 10 to 50 million VND to remedy the consequences, so the Procuracy proposed that the panel of judges reduce their sentences by 1 to 3 years compared to the first instance sentence. Regarding the appeals of the victims, the Procuracy also proposed to accept the appeals of 31 victims requesting an increase in the compensation compared to the first instance judgment. As for some victims requesting to receive land and calculate interest, the Procuracy also proposed to reject the appeals because there was no basis to accept them.

Defending himself, defendant Luyen requested the panel of judges not to accept the appeal of the 31 victims to receive more money, but to recognize the compensation amount as the first instance judgment. Because doing so would increase the amount by 300 billion VND, this is too large an amount and has not been verified.

Late yesterday afternoon, the court concluded its debate, moved into extended deliberation and will announce its verdict on May 19.

As reported by Thanh Nien , in 2016, Nguyen Thai Luyen established Alibaba Real Estate JSC with a charter capital of 1 billion VND; then established 22 legal entities under the names of relatives and employees. Defendant Luyen and his accomplices advertised 58 fake real estate projects in Dong Nai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau and Binh Thuan. These companies illegally divided and divided plots of land, and advertised falsely to sell to thousands of people.