Rotorua couple Leo Gao and Kara Yang-Hurring fled New Zealand after a Westpac staff member accidentally deposited $NZ10 million into their account after they applied for a $NZ10,000 business overdraft. The bank has since recovered about $NZ6 million, but the couple - who ran a BP service station in Rotorua that had just been put into receivership - skipped the country with the remaining millions.

Police announced last week they were hunting the pair. Also missing with Gao and Yang-Hurring are Yang-Hurring's daughter Leena, 7, Gao's mother, his business partner Huan Di Zhang and Yang-Hurring's sister Aroha Hurring, the New Zealand Herald reported. New Zealand police said one of those family members had returned to Auckland from Hong Kong about lunchtime today, and was being questioned by police.

A friend told the New Zealand Herald that Aroha Hurring had been charting the group's journey on Facebook, after she joined Gao and Yang-Hurring a few days after the couple fled. "She told me her sister had rung her from China and she was thinking of going over," the friend said.

"She wanted to know where she was ringing from. She had the country area code so I Googled it [and it was the international code for Macau]." Since then, Aroha Hurring has written on Facebook: "Aroha Hurring is having a Tsingtao beer. It's 30 degrees plus - the heat is good though." On China, she wrote: "It's crazy. The only thing I hate is that they look at me funny."

Sue Hurring, appealed on New Zealand TV for her daughter, Kara, to return home and turn herself in. "We've just come from the police station trying to sort out this stupid, stupid bizarre situation," she said.

She said her daughter was honest and hardworking, and laid blame for the situation squarely on Gao. "Well, I've, if you really want to know, I'd like to wring his blimmin' neck." As the hunt continues, the employee responsible for their accidental windfall was so distressed by their error she was undergoing counselling, TVNZ reported.

Westpac said it was concerned at the attention the employee, who TVNZ said had more than 30 years of banking experience, was receiving and appealed for privacy. "The impact of this episode is being felt by all of our employees, who are good people just doing their jobs," a spokesman told TVNZ.

"What should be remembered is the loss from this episode did not happen because of the error, but because of the behaviour of individuals who have taken advantage of the error."