Mr. Tran’s Messy Life and Legacy
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:12 am
By JOHN LELAND
The New York Times
Truong Dinh Tran led a mostly uneventful life, unless you count spending two years in a North Vietnamese prison, swimming his way to South Vietnam, building a fortune in wartime, fleeing to the United States with a suitcase full of cash and another full of gold, installing himself and his four paramours and their children in a single-room-occupancy hotel on Manhattan’s West Side, becoming a subject of the biggest federal seizure of property related to drug charges in American history, and then donating $2 million to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund after Sept. 11. When he died, in 2012, Mr. Tran left a fortune valued at $100 million, at least 16 children by five women, one self-described wife, and no last will and testament.
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