Couple on the run after bank deposits $10 million by accident

magick

magick

magick

Soldato
Joined
11 Apr 2004
Posts
4,413
Police are hunting an Asian couple thought to have fled the country with millions of dollars, after a banking error.

The couple, who ran a Rotorua service station, are understood to have applied to Westpac Bank for a $10,000 overdraft and mistakenly had $10 million paid into their account.

A Westpac spokesman today refused to confirm the amount mistakenly given to the couple, though said the bank was "pursing vigorous criminal and civil action to recover the sum of money stolen".

He said human error was responsible for the couple's substantial windfall, not a systems error, and that the bank was reviewing its procedures.

Police had asked international police liaison organisation Interpol to help find the couple.

The service station has closed and gone into receivership.

Officer-in-charge Detective Senior Sergeant David Harvey of Rotorua CIB was prepared only to say that an investigation had been launched into a substantial sum of money that had been "mistakenly advanced" from Westpac.

Police had received a complaint from Westpac relating to people living in Rotorua.

He refused to say how much money was involved.

Police were investigating because the Westpac bank considered what had happened was theft or fraud, through the use of a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage, Mr Harvey told Rotorua's Daily Post newspaper.

He confirmed some of the money mistakenly advanced had been withdrawn from the bank account but was not prepared to say how much money was involved.

He expected the investigation to "take some time".

Banking Ombudsman Liz Brown told The Daily Post that generally speaking it was a criminal offence for someone to spend money accidentally put into their bank account if they knew the money wasn't theirs.

In her 15 years as banking ombudsman she had been involved in 10 to 20 cases of this nature. They were legally referred to as "payment by mistake".

She was unable to recall how much money was involved in each case.

"There haven't been cases of millions of dollars but certainly ones where there have been several thousand dollars," she said.

Massey University banking lecturer Claire Matthews said the lucky recipients would probably not get away with it.

"They've taken funds that they're not entitled to, that are not theirs," she told Newstalk ZB.

"They've effectively, I guess, become thieves but it is only going to be a matter of time."

The business owners would be hard pressed to argue they honestly believed they were entitled to such a huge sum of money, she said.

Westpac said this morning court action had begun to recover the money but refused to comment further.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5582528/interpol-alerted-couple-flee-millions/
Click to expand...

How long do you they'll last?
 
How can they not track the money? Surely they have loads of systems in place to track wire transfers. Otherwise money laundering would be ridiculously easy.
 
Discussing on IRC. What would stop you fleeing, transferring it into an untouchable account somewhere, then returning to the UK and admitting everything and putting in a guilty plea.

Do the minimised time, come out a free man, then work on leeching the money back from the account. I'd happily do a bit of time for NZ$10m.
 
10,000,000.00 NZD=3,869,281.43 GBP

So, assuming the time was less than ~20 years i'd do it, as that equates to a tax free prison salary of ~£200k/year.
 
cactuscake said:
That can be quite a long period though... some of our country's greatest robbers get longer sentences than murderers, usually based on how much they took.
Click to expand...


it depends on the method by which you rob a bank. england is notorious for being extremely leniant when it comes to white collar crime. admittedly though the said people are usualy well connected ex-public school boys.
 
You know, I'm in two minds whether to say "fair play to them" or not.

To be honest, if that amount was deposited I would probably write to the bank (instead of phoning and speaking to a powerless monkey), informing of the mistake and asking for a little reward for being honest - see if they'll drop me a bit of dosh.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if the temptation to simply withdraw it all and split would be easy to overcome.
 
Pestilence said:
You know, I'm in two minds whether to say "fair play to them" or not.

To be honest, if that amount was deposited I would probably write to the bank (instead of phoning and speaking to a powerless monkey), informing of the mistake and asking for a little reward for being honest - see if they'll drop me a bit of dosh.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if the temptation to simply withdraw it all and split would be easy to overcome.
Click to expand...

I really can't imagine how anyone could keep it. Not for the moral grounds but for the reason that you'd always be living in fear of being court and the inevitable prison sentence. No money (well, certainly not $10m) counterbalances that kind of constant torment
 
Speculation here is that they're in China...

What I can't figure out is how the hell they moved $6m out of the account without getting noticed :eek:

As for whether I'd take the money and run - no way hosay. They'll be looking over their shoulder for years to come.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom