A jailed billionaire’s Birkin bags are going on sale. It won’t be enough to repay her victims

Two of Lan's Birkin bags were sold at auction for over half a million dollars. (Ho Chi Minh City Asset Auction Service Center via CNN Newsource)

A parade of luxury cars, handbags and yachts up for auction has done little to help their owner, a disgraced Vietnamese tycoon, repay the billions she owes victims in one of the largest fraud cases in history.

Once one of Vietnam’s richest businesswomen, Truong My Lan received two life sentences for her central role in a scam where she and her accomplices siphoned about US$44 billion through one of the country’s largest banks.

She was initially sentenced to death in 2024 for one of the convictions – embezzling $12 billion – unless she repaid three quarters of that amount.

At the time, the severity of the ruling reflected the enormous scale of Lan’s fraud as well as efforts by authorities to restore investor trust.

Last year, Vietnam removed the death penalty for eight offences including embezzlement. Lan’s death sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment.

However, she is still a long way from paying the $27 billion she owes the victims of her crimes.

In May, two of Lan’s Hermes handbags were sold via online auction, fetching about $539,000.

This was in spite of Truong’s request that the Birkin bags, one of which she purchased in Italy and the other which was gifted to her by a Malaysian tycoon, be returned to her as keepsakes for her children and grandchildren.

Three luxury cars that belonged to Lan also went under the hammer last month: a four-seat white Maybach starting at about $265,000, a five-seat blue BMW for $36,700 and a five-seat black Lexus for $29,000. The Maybach sold for about $630,000.

The proceeds will first go toward judgment enforcement and auction costs, along with court and legal fees, according to lawyer Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang, who has previously represented Lan.

So far, Lan has paid back about $455,000, and the Ho Chi Minh City Judgment Enforcement Agency is still actively processing assets related to Lan for damage compensation, Nguyen told CNN.

Earlier this year, Ho Chi Minh City authorities attempted to auction Lan’s yacht, named The Reverie Saigon, for around $2 million. After several attempts, they reduced the starting bid by 18 per cent. Two other ships owned by Lan, priced at about $175,000 each, have also failed to find buyers.

Seized assets are usually difficult to auction off in Vietnam, according to local media outlet VnExpress. Some items had been offered for sale more than 10 times without success, it said.

Lan, 69, built a sprawling real estate empire of luxury homes and commercial properties before she was accused of one of the biggest frauds in global history. Investigators said she took out $44 billion in loans and cash with shell companies and accomplices, and bribed regulators and officials to cover her tracks.

Aside from the case involving the $12 billion, Lan was handed another life sentence in another case for obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border transfers.

Hoang-Hai Dang contributed reporting from Hanoi