New Zealand Bank Error Fugitives Foiled By Facebook Status Update
You know how it goes. You go out and have too many beers, then post a Facebook update with a bit too much information about your evening. Maybe you take it down once you sober up the next day, but not before the damage is done.
Then, if you're Aroha Hurring of New Zealand, Interpol uses your status update to track down you, your sister, her boyfriend, and the millions of dollars his bank mistakenly deposited in his account.
Last week, Consumerist brought you the story of the struggling gas station owners who were the recipients of a $10,000,000 NZD bank error, then wired the money out of the country and hadn't been heard from since.
Rotorua service station owners Leo Gao and his girlfriend Cara Young fled New Zealand with about $NZ3 million after they discovered the money in their bank account.But their chances of being caught have increased after they were joined overseas by Ms Young's sister, Aroha Hurring, who posted details about their location on her Facebook page.
Police believe the trio are in China after Ms Hurring foolishly updated her status to say she was drinking the local Asian beer and enjoying the heat.
Saying that they've been "foiled" is perhaps a little hasty. They haven't been found yet, and things get a little bit more complicated seeing that New Zealand has no extradition treaty with China.
Protip: if you're the subject of an international manhunt, keep your accomplices off social networking sites.
Facebook blunder betrays NZ millionaires [ABC] (Thanks, Kim!)
(Photo: lobsterstew)
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Comments:
Only a complete moron thinks they can live comfortably for the rest of their lives with $4M USD.
@Pixelantes Anonymous: Actually you could probably live very easily on $4m for the rest of your life. In China you could live like a king on $4m for the rest of your life.
Two million US and you're eating what???
@P.T.Wheatstraw: Are you kidding me? It would be the easiest thing in the world, if you chose the right country. Hell, you could live fine in America forever on even $1M - just not high on the hog. In the third world, you'd be veeeeery comfortable.
Space out $1M, with no interest, and you can draw ten times the average salary of someone in, say, Thailand for the rest of your life.
That's The only problem would be crossing borders, international travel, always looking over your shoulder...
@Pixelantes Anonymous: Maybe that complete moron knows how to invest. Put it in a conservative fund at 5% APY and you have $200,000/year to live on. That meets my definition of comfortable. Now if I can just find somebody to "accidently" give me millions of dollars.
I always tell my young friends and family members to be careful what they post on Facebook. I bet Ms. Hurring's going to have trouble getting a respectable job, too....
@Pixelantes Anonymous:
I'd certainly have no problems living on that amount the rest of my life, but we all convince ourselves that we could live frugally with that much banked.
I'm certain there are plenty of people that wouldn't be able to constrain themselves.
Google bankrupt lottery winner if you don't believe me. =p
Planning planning planning. If you're going to do this you have to sit down and do it right. I'm just saying...
Everyone knows facebook is the first place authorities go. People should really lock down their pages to only KNOWN friends (people you've met in "real" life). My friend got busted by my county's alcohol control board for a post about a party on facebook.
@Pixelantes Anonymous: I'm guessing this post is a joke. If not, the commenter must be thoroughly out of touch. As a schoolteacher, do you have any idea how long I'd have to work to make 4m?
And yet, even at my modest salary, I have a house, two working cars, two deduct... er, kids, and zero debt outside of the mortgage.
So yeah, $4m, about $3m more than I will ever make in my lifetime (if you include benefits), looks pretty doable to me!
@Pixelantes Anonymous:
Two words... compound interest.
Also, you could definitely live comfortably in a country where shit costs less than the US.
After reading this post and seeing how these people can (sort of) do it, I think if a bank accidentally dropped a few mil into my bank account, I'd really do it.
He should have said "Partying in Antarctica like 1999" to throw Interpol off their tracks too bad they probably hired robert langdon to crack the case......4 million USD stolen by 2 people....2 the third Fibonacci number!
Did they track her down through cyber-sleuthing her facebook account, or is that facebook status message all they have to go by? The article doesn't say. If the second, then maybe it's a trick, and she's smarter than other people thought. Seems awfully risky to assume that "Asia" means "China," though...
nukin futs says it all.
it is true, people want to be famous for doing nothing.
They could be faking it with their facebook messages.
Why would China let these people go? If China lets them stay with their money, China has another $10 million and zero headaches.
If they let them go, they still have few headaches, but $10 million less.
I wonder who's check the bank is gonna take this out of :P
@Chmeeee: Except that they can't...the minute they put that money anywhere else than in their socks, the Interpol will catch them.
They can't invest it, they can't put it in a bank. They can't buy anything of value with it. They're thoroughly screwed.
Unless they also invest in a fake identity.
@takes_so_little: Well, I guess I should've put a disclaimer on it...
Only a complete moron thinks they can live comfortably with $4M for the rest of lives while on the run from the law.
That severely limits their options of using the money to live off the little egg nest they stole. Also the mere fact that they're running from the law will cause additional costs they would otherwise not have. Like getting the f*** out of dodge whenever the police gets too close.
@cc82: Yes, well, you think these geniuses can invest their money to get interest?
I don't think so. $4M is all they got from now until they die or get caught. Unless they get a job.
@Pixelantes Anonymous: I believe the ZN$3,000,000 is worth less than 4 million USD. At any rate, it's quite a lot for a country such as China, though exchanging NZ$ for yen might not be that great an exchange rate when you're trying to keep a low profile and have 3 million dollars to change.. Plus, as noted in the article, China does not have an extradition treaty with NZ and - if Gao is a Chinese citizen - they probably won't give him to them regardless.
@shepd: They don't have 10 million, and it was New Zealand dollars, not USD. The point still stands that China is not likely to extradite.
@Pixelantes Anonymous: So you are saying that you can't live comfortably on a salary less than $100k?
I'm confused as to how they are fugitives. They put in for a loan, received 100 times more from the bank, wired the money the bank erroneously gave them, and left town. First off, isn't this the bank's problem? They screwed up. Why are the authorities involved. Secondly, they could legitimately just be on vacation. I know it's probably far from the truth, it's a possibility. Why is using an erroneous credit limit that you gained by no illegal means a crime?
Unless they send "the Batman" into China, these guys are never going to see the inside of a court (unless they get high on hubris and decide to take a vacation into an extraditable country)
@qxrt:
True, but if they contact facebook, they may be able to narrow down their location...unless she was smart enough to use proxies, which I highly doubt.
Because you have no jutifiable reason to expect it's really your money. If you request 10k and get 11k, you could argue (perhaps though you'd lose) that you thought it was legitimate. To request 10k and get 10 million and there's no judge or jury in the world who would believe you honestly thought it was your money. Since the law depends on that, you're screwed.
Maybe they were in Chinatown... in LA.
@Megalomania: Yen is Japanese money. Don't know what they use in China though, and am too lazy to look that shit up. : )
@Mr_Mantastic: Getting 100x the "credit limit" wouldn't be a crime, but actually taking 100x the money you're entitled to, withdrawing it in cash and then leaving the country pretty much comes under the heading of "stealing."
Leaving your new $50,000 Corvette unlocked with the keys in it is a mistake too, but it doesn't entitle someone else to make off with it.
china....town. loves those egg rolls.
Sounds like they are of Chinese extraction, so it shouldn't have been hard to guess where they would flee. God knows why they brought the sister, though.
@Charlotte Rae's Web: That was my first thought...post something spilling your location and then remove it like it was a mistake, then laugh hysterically when you see news articles cropping up claiming you were stupid enough to tell the world you're in China (when you're really nowhere even close)
Well, if they met the sister in China (because she lives there) then it's possible however:
a) double check that IP, they could be lying about the "local asian beer" and/or
b) the sister might be pretending to be with them in the first place.
Can't they invest their money safely in a Swiss bank account or a Caribbian off-shore account? That's where most big-time thieves hide their ill gotten gains!
I've always dreamt that something like this would happen to me and I would get to live a life of adventure on the lam.
They're in China, you say?
@FuryOfFirestorm: I thought I heard something in the news recently about the Swiss banks no longer doing the anonymous accounts that they have been so well known for.
That's 4 million without income taxes. So more like 8 million.
I'm about 32, let's assume I would live to 72.
That's 40 years.
That's $100,000k a year tax free. Yeah, I can live on that.
/I could live even better on that if I got the 4 million tax free without having to be a fugitive. Because I'd be sticking a bunch of that into risk free CDs and bonds. $4 million at 2% APR is nothing to scoff at.
@Pixelantes Anonymous: Depends how old you are. If I work till I'm 65 at my current salary (plausible -- I'm near the top of my profession), I'll make roughly another $2.5M before I retire, plus benefits. If you told me I could have $4M now, no tax, no strings, but no investment: yeah, I could quit and live exactly as well as I do now.
Which, given your demonstrated financial acumen, I suspect is a lot better than you are living...
Using an exchange rate of 1 NZD = 0.6205 USD, 3 million in NZ is about $1.86 million USD. Bonnie and Clyde had to work a hell of a lot harder for that amount of scratch.
With the state of the current economies, with the banks held in such high regard, is it any wonder that these folks went for it?
@☠Grяrяrяrяrя sings the doom song now!: >>>>Getting 100x the "credit limit" wouldn't be a crime, but actually taking 100x the money you're entitled to, withdrawing it in cash and then leaving the country pretty much comes under the heading of "stealing."
Didn't seem to bother the authors of the bank bailouts in the good old USA... When the banks "make" money, they are rewarded for their prowess and wisdom. When it turns out to be 100x reserves and there's nothing backing it up - then the people gotta bail them out. HEY - where's the money you took on those phony paper profits? Oh - Asia, having a beer?
Here in NZ, Facebook has also been used by a judge to issue of court documents using Facebook on a man being sued over his business dealings.
A woman on the solo parent benefit was also outed on Facebook when she made it known she was living with her boyfriend.
[www.nzherald.co.nz]
Getting back to the bank error, the worker who made the mistake is apparently verging on a breakdown over this. She had been in the banking industry for over 30 years. I feel for her!
I have nothing of substance to say about the article, other than that I've been considering moving to a "more affordable" country when my son is grown - I am in a career field where telecommuting is the norm so in theory I should be able to work from anywhere. Problem is I'm a very picky eater and would probably starve to death in a year without access to American-style foods. And that leads me to the actual comment I came here to make:
That bread looks really GOOD. Anyone have a likely recipe or brand-name? I'm really serious, here. I would go to extreme lengths and outrageous expenses for bread that tastes as good as that bread looks like it would taste.
Wow.
I've heard of getting caught skipping work, but getting (sort of) caught skipping town with millions of dollars.
Turns out it really was -dumb- luck that got them the money in the first place.