A battle in the courts of communist Vietnam could lead to a death sentence for a woman facing charges of stealing $12.5 billion from Vietnam’s largest bank, which she controls through a network of private investors.

Truong My Lan is on trial along with her billionaire husband, Eric Chu, a Hong Kong real estate tycoon whom Vietnam is trying to extradite to Ho Chi Minh City. He’s accused of aiding her, along with 83 other defendants, including 45 from the Joint Stock Commercial Bank, 15 from the State Bank of Vietnam, and four government officials.

The corruption laid to the American-backed regime during what Vietnamese call the “American War” was blamed in part for the victory of communist forces in 1975.  The skullduggery of that era, though, was never on the scale of the charges that authorities are now prosecuting to restore the image of communist morality. 

“Our days were peanuts compared to this one.” a former Vietnam correspondent, Carl Robinson, says he believes. The general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, according to Mr. Robinson, “has been on an anti-corruption drive for the past few years with mixed results.” 

The trial is having a devastating impact. “Everywhere you go you’ll see huge building projects abandoned, like a huge one across from Central Market,” Mr. Robinson said. “This trial is going to deal a very serious blow to Vietnam’s reputation, no question — $12-plus billion is huge anywhere in the world.”

Much of the property market is “in deep freeze pending the outcome of this trial,” another former Vietnam correspondent, Jim Laurie, now visiting Saigon, the name by which the city is still widely known, said. The victors renamed it Ho Chi Minh City after the communist dictator, who died in 1969.

Mr. Laurie described “sirens blaring” and traffic “blocked by a long police-escorted convoy of more than 20 prison vehicles making its way from the old French built courthouse to the prison where Truong My Lan and accomplices are being held.” The Vietnamese, he said, “say they have never seen anything like it.”

For sure, the trial is giving Hanoi a chance to crack down on free-enterprising Saigon in a display of power that shows who’s boss  after the country’s communist leaders years ago relaxed controls, giving rise to an extravagant, albeit ersatz, capitalism under communist rule.

The accused “all face charges of embezzlement, bribery, abuse of power while performing official duties, lack of responsibility causing serious consequences, and violating bank regulations,” Vietnam News said. “There will be 2,400 witnesses and 200 lawyers, including five defending Lan.”

Prosecutors said she controls “1,000 shell companies that do not have any real operations,” according to the paper. “They were all set up by Lan to borrow money from the lender and to acquire shares in it.”