Luxury condominiums seized in Singapore’s S$3 billion money-laundering case are going unsold at auction, with bids coming in below reserve prices — while the former owners’ handbags, watches and jewellery are being fought over by bidders.
All seven seized luxury and office properties listed in the September 2026 Knight Frank auction failed to sell, with bids below reserve prices: four apartments at Gramercy Park, two at Sloane Residences and one office unit at Suntec Tower One. Earlier, four properties out of 20 seized were sold for S$12.7 million at auction — two units at Martin Modern and two at Wallich Residence. In August 2026, the appointed liquidator Deloitte announced the sale of more than 80 properties alongside over 1,000 luxury items via auctions run by Singapore auction house Hotlotz, running from September 2026 to May 2027.
Yet while multimillion-dollar apartments sit without bids, the luxury goods are flying out the door. At a Hotlotz auction, every luxury-goods lot sold. One limited-edition Louis Vuitton pumpkin bag created with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was expected to fetch S$12,000 to S$16,000 — instead, 81 bids pushed the final price to S$87,000. The initial luxury items for sale included brands from Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Graff, Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille and Rolex, with another 14 Hotlotz auctions planned, including Hermès handbags and more watches. The difference is partly psychological: someone chasing a rare handbag or watch may worry another opportunity will not appear, while property buyers can compare an apartment against alternatives, determine fair value and walk away when the numbers do not work.
The asset sales are the long tail of Singapore’s biggest money-laundering bust, which saw ten people convicted and some S$3 billion in assets seized. By the end of March, approximately S$1.4 billion in cash and proceeds from disposed assets had entered Singapore’s Consolidated Fund. Nine firms, including Credit Suisse, Citibank and United Overseas Bank, were hit with a combined S$27.45 million in penalties over anti-money-laundering shortcomings connected to the case.
The fugitive dimension continues to make headlines. In August 2026, the UK National Crime Agency froze 16 London properties valued at £24.7 million bought via two companies by Singapore fugitive Xu Haika (also known as Xu Haita), who had no UK bank accounts or salary to support the purchases. In November 2025, UK authorities seized $16 million worth of dinosaur bones — two allosauruses and a stegosaurus — plus nine apartments and a Chinese art collection belonging to fugitive Su Binghai and his company Su Empire, in a settlement with the NCA. Both men had fled Singapore after the 2023 raids.
Meanwhile, the domestic clean-up grinds on. In July 2026, a Singapore court sentenced LW Business Consultancy director Wang Junjie, 43, to an eight-month jail term and disqualified him as a company director for five years, for forgery and conspiracy to cheat the tax authority IRAS — a reminder that the case’s enablers extended from bankers to corporate service providers. For now, Singapore’s most infamous criminal asset sale has produced a strange split: people will fight over the handbags, but they will not fight over the homes.