Petrol station owner accidentally given £3.4million in bank error gets four years after going on the run and spending it

Hui 'Leo' Gao spent millions of dollars from his account after a bank error gave him £3.4m

Dubbed the 'accidental millionaire'

Along with girlfriend Kara Hurring, he fled from New Zealand to Hong Kong



An international manhunt was done to find them



Gao was jailed for four years and seven months today



Hurring was sentenced to nine months home detention for her lesser role in the crime



A petrol station owner has been sentenced to four years and seven months in jail after going on the run when a bank error mistakenly transferred £3.4 million into his account.

Dubbed the ‘accidental millionaire’, Hui ‘Leo’ Gao, 32, triggered an international manhunt after he fled New Zealand with his girlfriend Kara Hurring, transferring the mistaken money into overseas bank accounts and spending it abroad.

Hurring, 33, was sentenced to nine months of home detention for her role in the crime which was ‘significantly less’ and because she needed to look after the couple’s two children.

'Accidental millionaire': Hui 'Leo' Gao went on the run after transferring £3.4 million into overseas bank accounts when a bank error gave him access to the money

Gao’s lawyer Ron Mansfield said his client could not resist the temptation of such a large amount of money.

He said: ‘Your Honour, some say the greatest temptation was faced by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden but these are modern times for a man trying to keep the doors of his small business open, $10 million (£5.13 million) placed in his bank account was a very great temptation.’

Mr Mansfield also said his client had no premeditation and had not used any fraudulent means to steal the money.

The offence started when Australian bank Westpac accidentally gave Gao access to £5.1 million when he applied for overdraft financing for his business which he owned with his mother in Rotorua, New Zealand.

The bank approved his overdraft application with a £51,300 limit but a clerical error gave him access to 100 times the intended amount in April 2009.

On discovering the error, Gao was overheard by a flatmate yelling ‘f***ing rich...I've got $1 million’, according to court documents.

Home detention: Girlfriend Kara Hurring, pictured in court with Gao, was sentenced to nine months home detention for her 'lesser' role in the crime so she can look after the couple's children

Within a month the couple withdrew £3.4 million from Gao’s bank account and transferred it to bank accounts in Hong Kong and China.

Gao also transferred more than £178,000 to casino accounts in gambling hub Macau in China. Hurring also opened a ‘player’s account’ and £1.19 million was transferred to another account in the name of Gao’s father, Alex Wang.

He then fled to Hong Kong and Hurring followed a few days later but by early May the bank became aware of the error and alert authorities who issued an Interpol alert for the missing couple.

On the run for more than two years, Gao was finally arrested in Hong Kong in September 2011 and extradited to New Zealand where he pleaded guilty to seven charges of theft.

Hurring was arrested in February 2011 when she returned to New Zealand to renew her six-year-old daughter’s passport according to TV NZ. She was found guilty of 25 counts of theft and three counts of attempting to dishonestly use documents and two counts of money laundering.