Some would say Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao is a bit larger than life.

Vietnam’s first and only female billionaire, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao is known for courting controversy to boost sales on her airline, VietJet. For example, her business enlisted beauty pageant contestants to walk up and down the aisles in bikinis—a move that earned the company a slap on the wrist for violating aviation regulations.

But the violations go far beyond aviation regulations—she’s willing to violate human rights as well: Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s other business, HD Bank, provides loans to Mytel, a telecoms operator controlled by the Myanmar military that attempted a coup in 2021 and is terrorising the people of Myanmar.

Mytel provides the Myanmar military with a lucrative source of revenue—as much as USD $700 million in the coming years—and a means to monitor, intercept, and censor communications.

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