How expensive is the Hermès albino crocodile bag property tycoon Truong My Lan wants back?

An employee holds an Hermès diamond and Himalayan Nilo Crocodile Birkin handbag at Heritage Auctions offices in Beverly Hills, California, Sept. 22, 2014. Photo by Reuters

At the Sept. 27 hearing, the chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat, who is on trial for orchestrating a fraudulent bond issuance scheme in 2018 that caused over 35,800 investors to lose VND30 trillion ($1.2 billion), requested the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City to return her two Hermes albino crocodile bags, along with other confiscated assets taken during the investigation.

She explained to the court that she had bought one bag in Italy and received the other as a gift from a Malaysian billionaire. "I would like them returned to my family as mementos."

According to the Daily Mail, such high-quality handbags are produced in limited quantities and are available only to a select group of elite Hermès clients.

In 2016, a diamond-encrusted albino crocodile Hermès Birkin bag was sold for US$300,168 to an anonymous Asian collector after a competitive bidding war in Hong Kong.

According to Page Six, a Himalaya Birkin fetched US$382,295 at a 2020 Christie’s auction, and a diamond-embellished version was privately sold for US$450,000 at Sotheby’s in 2022.

As listed on Christie’s official website, the auction house sold a Kelly bag for HK$2,750,000 (US$355,000) in 2021 in Hong Kong. In November, this figure was surpassed when Christie’s auctioned another Kelly bag for HK$4,000,000.

The New York Post reported that in April of this year, American singer Jennifer Lopez was seen with a Hermès Himalayan Niloticus Birkin bag, valued at around US$500,000.

Kathleen Guzman, managing director at the New York office of Heritage Auctions, explained to CBS News that the bag variant’s significant price tags are due to the rarity of the material—a crocodile so pale it is nearly albino.

He noted that Hermès cultivates its own crocodiles on a farm, selectively breeding them for their exceptionally light color. "But then to search for a crocodile that has almost an albino skin is extraordinarily rare," Guzman said.

Earlier this year Lan was sentenced to death for embezzling money from the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), between 2012 and 2022. She and her accomplices owe VND677 trillion to the bank they had obtained through 1,300 different loans.

She has filed an appeal against the death sentence.