This story began six months ago and has not finished yet. In May, Leo Gao who had a petrol station in Rotorua, asked Westpac Bank to lend him $100,000 because his business was in financial trouble. A bank employee made a mistake and put $10million in his bank account. The employee put the decimal point in the wrong place or added extra zeros to the figure. When Leo Gao found this money in his bank account, he, his girlfriend and her 7-year old daughter very quickly left New Zealand with most of the money and went to China. When the bank realized what had happened, it was too late: most of the money had gone.

Westpac have managed to get back $6.2m and they have sold four properties that Gao owned. Gao used some of the money at a casino in Macau so Westpac tried to get money from the casino but were not successful. The casino owners said that if a customer comes into their casino with a lot of money, they don’t ask where it came from. Westpac lost money taking the casino to court in Hong Kong.

New Zealand police are hoping that Chinese police will help them find the money and find Gao. However, there has been no success so far.