WELLINGTON: A New Zealand man who fled to China after a bank mistakenly deposited millions of dollars into his account was jailed for four years and seven months yesterday.
Hui ‘Leo’ Gao and his then-partner Kara Hurring skipped the country when Westpac bank accidentally put NZ$10 million (US$8.1 million) into Gao’s account in April 2009 after he requested a NZ$100,000 overdraft.
The error was discovered within days but by then Gao had transferred NZ$6.78 million into offshore bank accounts and the pair, dubbed the ‘runaway millionaires’, had left the country.
Gao spent more than two years on the run before he was arrested at Interpol’s request in September last year as he tried to enter Hong Kong from mainland China.
He was sentenced in the Rotorua District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to seven charges of theft at an earlier hearing. — AFP