After a $2.4 billion money laundering bust, Singapore now has hundreds of luxury handbags to shift
By Oscar Holland, CNN
Singapore (CNN) — One of history’s largest ever money laundering busts left officials in Singapore with a multibillion-dollar question: What to do with the cars, properties and thousands of luxury goods seized in the investigation?
Three years after the coordinated raids, which saw over 400 police officers target a criminal network profiting from scams and illicit gambling, the answer is now partly on display deep inside a secretive storage facility near the affluent city-state’s airport.
In a windowless, concrete-walled room, collectors are being invited to browse hundreds of the forfeited items. Cartier rings, Bulgari necklaces and Hermès “Kelly” bracelets are on show alongside rows of handbags and accessories by brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. It’s a haul so vast that the sales are being spread across 15 auctions, between now and next May, to avoid flooding the market.
“The amount of luxury handbags, the sheer volume of the jewelry here — all of great quality and all from the best jewelry houses — is something we don’t see every day,” said Christopher Lanigan-O’Keeffe, co-founder of Hotlotz, the auction house tasked with selling the goods. “You might be lucky to see one or two pieces like this, but all together at once is quite unusual,” he said as he toured CNN around the viewing room in Singapore’s high-security Freeport.
Conducted after two years of investigations, the country-wide police operation involved assets worth more than $3 billion Singaporean dollars ($2.4 billion). As well as cash, cryptocurrency and gold bars, officers seized properties, sports cars, wine, liquor, electronics and even hundreds of Bearbricks, collectible Japanese teddy toys that can sell for six-figure sums.
Ten Chinese nationals (although many held passports issued by other countries including Cambodia and Turkey) were later convicted on charges including money laundering and forgery. The culprits owned businesses and properties in Singapore, where prosecutors said they channeled the proceeds of overseas criminal activities. They were each jailed for between 13 and 17 months, though all have since been released and deported.
Forfeited luxury items were also linked to 17 suspects who remain on the run overseas, 15 of whom agreed to surrender assets to Singapore in return for having Interpol notices against them withdrawn.
Some objects going up for auction carry evidence of their illicit past. An 18-karat gold ring, for instance, is engraved with the initials “SHJ,” matching those of Su Haijin, one of the convicted men. But most of the objects are in good or pristine condition, indistinguishable from equivalent items on the resale market.
Hotlotz has valued them as such. The auction house’s first two sales, which run online until later this month, are expected to raise up to 3.9 million Singapore dollars ($3.1 million), with proceeds going directly to Singapore’s treasury.
Lanigan-O’Keeffe believes the objects’ origins will have little impact on the final prices. “Each individual collector or buyer will have their own views on that,” he said. “To some people, maybe (it matters), but to other people, some of these items are hard to come by.”
Hermès by the hundreds
The sales have been over a year in the making. In July 2025, Singapore appointed Deloitte to liquidate the non-cash assets seized by investigators. The accounting firm then selected four real estate firms — SRI, Knight Frank, Edmund Tie & Company and List International Realty — to auction or sell more than 80 properties. Among them is a four-bedroom penthouse in the Norman Foster-designed South Beach development that is expected to sell for upwards of 25.3 million Singapore dollars ($20 million) later this month.
Hotlotz, meanwhile, was asked to recuperate as much money as possible from the luxury goods. The auction house has spent the last four months authenticating and valuing the haul.
The items “would not be out of place in any of the top auctions in New York, London, Paris or Hong Kong,” said Lanigan-O’Keeffe, adding: “To be able to offer the caliber of these goods in one series is quite unheard of.”
The highest estimate belongs to a 15-carat yellow diamond ring that Hotlotz predicts will sell for up to 300,000 Singapore dollars ($237,000). Rings by Hermès and British jeweler Graff are also expected to attract six-figure sums. Elsewhere, a pumpkin handbag, from Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with the late Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, has already exceeded auction estimates, with a current top bid of 39,000 Singapore dollars ($31,000) at the time of publication.
Other lots span diamond-studded belts, hair clips and even children’s jewelry — small anklets, rings and bracelets made from solid gold — once owned by suspects in the case. Future sales will feature luxury watches and enough Hermès handbags (around 250, Hotlotz said) for two standalone auctions, the first of which is scheduled for November.
By holding the auctions online, Hotlotz hopes to attract bidders from around the world, not just Singapore. And with estimates starting as low as 120 Singapore dollars ($95), for a Miu Miu ring or a Gucci hair clip, these items aren’t just for the ultra-wealthy.
“The most expensive things aren’t always the most interesting,” Lanigan-O’Keeffe said.
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