In the 2018 film Ocean's 8, eight glamorous and quick-witted women, led by the con artist Debbie Ocean, devise an elaborate plan to steal a $150 million Cartier necklace at the Met Gala, the world's most prestigiousHighly respected. fashion event.

With their impossibly fashionable get-ups, the women take advantage of the ways in which they are underestimated. After all, they joke, heistsA robbery, especially one in which money, jewellery, or art is stolen. are usually undertaken by men.

Perhaps the Vietnamese property developer Truong My Lan felt like the fictional Debbie Ocean? She spent an impressive 11 years looting one of the country's largest banks before anybody noticed a thing.

The scale of her crime is dizzying, amounting to $44 billion (£35 billion). It is the biggest financial fraud case in Vietnam's history, with the spoilsGoods stolen or taken forcibly from a person or place. amounting to a staggering 3% of the country's entire GDP.

But the ambitious business woman flew too close to the sun. Amid an anti-corruption campaign in Vietnam, she has been sentenced to death for her crimes.

Some see it as unfair that Truong My Lan is facing such a harsh sentence. After all, many believe she was protected for years by powerful figures in Ho Chi Minh City, and that she is being used an an example.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, many called for the US Wall Street bankers and executives who they felt had caused the crisis to go to jail. All but one walked free.¹

This crisis led to a loss of over $2 trillion in global economic growth and wiped out $8 trillion in stock market value. Americans alone saw a $9.8 trillion loss in wealth.

Next to the 2008 crisis, Truong My Lan's enormous heist seems almost insignificant. Sentencing her to death, in turn, appears absurd. But many think the sentence is intended as symbolic, a way of finally putting the country's corruption problem to sleep.

Is this penalty too harsh?

Yes: Money can never measure up to a person's life. It is inconceivable to take somebody's life over a few billion pounds.

No: My Lan's fraud amounted to 3% of Vietnam's entire GDP. This is a crime of epic proportions which cannot be treated by the usual rules.

Or... There is no crime where the death penalty can ever be justified. No government or court should be able to decide if a person lives or dies.