Leo Gao and Cara Young on the run after bank error makes them millionaires

[영어도우미]

Leo Gao and Cara Young on the run after bank error makes them millionaires

(Rick Rycroft/AP)

Leo Gao and Cari Young applied to Westpac for a $10,000 overdraft but staff credited their account with 1,000 times more

Anne Barrowclough in Sydney

When a couple from New Zealand found that their bank had mistakenly paid almost £4 million into their account, they decided that the best policy was to follow in the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde and go on the run.

Leo Gao and his Australian girlfriend, Cara Young, who ran a failing petrol station in the tourist city of Rotorua, on North Island, had applied to Westpac bank for a NZ$10,000 (£3,900) overdraft. When bank staff credited their account with the amount requested but mistakenly added three zeros, the accidental millionaires appear to have taken Westpac’s motto — “Make the most of life” — to heart.

Two weeks ago, on May 7, they suddenly shut the doors of their garage and disappeared, leaving only a note saying that the business had gone into receivership. An international police hunt for the couple is under way.

The pair are thought to have fled to China or South Korea with up to $6 million of their $10 million windfall. Westpac is understood to have recovered $4 million. It is unclear exactly how Leo Gao and Cara Young got the money out of their account and into Korea, but it is likely that they thought taking it out from a cashpoint would attract comment. Once money is transferred into an account there is nothing to stop a customer wiring it to another account anywhere in the world.

In New Zealand there seems to be little sympathy for Westpac. But although the couple’s flight is rather less dramatic than the blood-spattered exploits of the 1930s American bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, there is little doubt that the couple have broken the law. Liz Brown, New Zealand’s banking ombudsman, said that it was a criminal offence for someone to spend money accidentally put into their account if they knew that it was not theirs.

Tania Davies, who owns Zero to 100 Automotive, a business next door to the garage, said that the “quiet” couple had acted as if it were business as usual one day and disappeared the next. “Deliveries arrived and just piled up outside the front door. A few people started to help themselves to newspapers and supplies,” Ms Davies said. “Saturday, Sunday we realised something else was up. They’d done a runner.”

BP staff arrived yesterday and removed petrol tanks and equipment from the garage, which was now empty, she said. The service station’s operating company went into receivership this month, the Rotorua Daily Post reported.

Chevi Lambert, a neighbour, said that a private investigator had recently been knocking on doors asking if anyone had seen the couple, whom she described as “ordinary”. Their business, she said, had been going steadily downhill over recent months.

The garage is listed as being owned by Huan Di Zhang and Hui Gao, believed to be the birth names of the couple. They also own a $700,000 house in West Harbour, a smart suburb in Auckland. Neighbours there said they had not seen them since the early days of this month.

Detective Senior Sergeant David Harvey, of Rotorua police, said that Interpol had been informed.

QUESTIONS:

* Do you think the couple in this story are really thieves?

* What questions would you like to ask the couple on the run?

* What do you think will happen to the person who made the mistake?

* Do you think this mistake will damage Westpac Bank’s reputation?

* How often do you have money problems or experience financial difficulties?

* What would you do if you saw $10,000,000 in your bank account?