The $10 million dollar story

[basilio]

Somewhere over the rainbow a youngish struggling couple from The Bay of Plenty in New Zealand have skipped away with a very large slab of cash that Westpac kindly (but mistakenly) slipped into their bank account.

"Everyone knows" that sooner rather than later they will be caught. So what should they do? What do we think will happen ? Can we write our own adventure here (and maybe even help create it) ?

First cab off the rank. They have a great time for a few days. Know they are going to get caught. Decide to simply give away most of the cash to unsuspecting poor people, charities, and so on. They get caught , plead temporary insanity (after all they did give away most of the money...) and throw themselves on the mercy of the court.

They get a few years in jail and then produce a movie called the Karma and $10 million dollars.

Your thoughts ?

 

[Glen48]

I think they have a tiger by the tail and every time some one knocks on the door .... move to some poor country who don't have extraditions right with NZ and keep low will this cause Westpac shares to tank?... never.. they will be rich but can't show it.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I must admit , if it had been me, I would have done a runner with $10mil.

But then I'm honest.

gg

 

[awg]

anyone know how much cash they got out?

what type of currency etc?

issues of withdrawing and then carrying cash out of NZ

couldnt find any links

did find one on the practicalities and ethics of shoplifting which really distracted me

wont post that link tho

 

[Bill M]

anyone know how much cash they got out?

what type of currency etc?

issues of withdrawing and then carrying cash out of NZ

Apparently $2 M has been transferred out of the country, $3 M has been spent and $5 M has now been blocked.

It seems they had a business account which allowed for far higher withdrawals and transfers.

About taking cash out, although there are laws ($10,000 AUD for OZ), I have never ever been checked for it and I go O/S a lot.

Personally I would have owned up, you can't ever get away with this sort of thing, Interpol are on their tails....

 

[So_Cynical]

Somewhere over the rainbow a youngish struggling couple from The Bay of Plenty in New Zealand have skipped away with a very large slab of cash that Westpac kindly (but mistakenly) slipped into their bank account.

And there names are Huan Di Zhang and Hui Gao...when i first heard this story i put 2 and 2
together and figured this couple had somewhere to run to, somewhere where they could fit
right in, speak the language and buy new identity's...silly me, when the news said they owned
a service station i figured they were Indian.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25515799-462,00.html

 

[beamstas]

The issue here for me is if the bank accidently rips someone off are they going to run aroud chasing the person like this to give the money back?

Doubt it

I say good on them

Screw the banks

 

[Julia]

The issue here for me is if the bank accidently rips someone off are they going to run aroud chasing the person like this to give the money back?

Doubt it

Actually, I think the bank will chase them, even if just on principle.

I say good on them

Screw the banks

However much you dislike banks, it's still just dishonest to attempt to keep the money. They will be tracked down before long imo and face charges.

 

[awg]

And there names are Huan Di Zhang and Hui Gao...

Apparently $2 M has been transferred out of the country, $3 M has been spent and $5 M has now been blocked.

It seems they had a business account which allowed for far higher withdrawals and transfers.

About taking cash out, although there are laws ($10,000 AUD for OZ), I have never ever been checked for it and I go O/S a lot.

Personally I would have owned up, you can't ever get away with this sort of thing, Interpol are on their tails....

With that amount, if they are gone already, they will be able to obtain multiple Chinese passports very cheaply, if they have contacts.

It might be very difficult to track them down, if they are clever.

you would always be looking over yr shoulder.

There was a couple on the NSW North Coast not long ago, very similar, except they stayed put and tried to claim they didnt realise they were not entiltled, however they were convicted and ordered to repay

 

[sardines]

They're probably uneducated risk-takers. It's more than likely that they'll get caught at some Macau casino trying to make a buck.

 

[weird]

I wouldn't want to mess with Aussie banks, pretty sure these guys will be found eventually, unless perhaps they have SAS survival skills ... there will be smarter people than themselves on their case.

Hope they are enjoying what they have now.

 

[So_Cynical]

Easy to "disappear" in the Chinese community pretty much anywhere in the world.

 

[Bafana]

Move Indonesia and buy a new identity (Red haired fundamentalist from Jawa).

Would have to give it a thought.

My main worry would be getting caught - Catholic upbringing.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I must admit , if it had been me, I would have done a runner with $10mil.

But then I'm honest.

gg

Any comments on what you would do, if it happened to you, and you had a good chance of getting away with it?

gg

 

[gav]

Any comments on what you would do, if it happened to you, and you had a good chance of getting away with it?

gg

Define "good chance"

Seriously, I'd hand it back without a second thought. I'd rather my slightly above average income and not have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. You'd also never (or best case, rarely) get to see your family/loved ones again. No amount of money is worth that (well not to me, anyway).

 

[doctorj]

Define "good chance"

Seriously, I'd hand it back without a second thought. I'd rather my slightly above average income and not have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. You'd also never (or best case, rarely) get to see your family/loved ones again. No amount of money is worth that (well not to me, anyway).

Agree with the sentiment. You'd have to get the money (and yourself) to a country without an extradition treaty with Aus. Electronic transfer won't work as its too slow to clear at the other end under normal circumstance.
You couldn't use it to buy physical gold (too heavy, too hard to get that much physical quickly). Diamonds might be an option. Of course, you'll lose bucket loads on the transaction costs, so that's not great either. Art work is quite easy to transport and is fairly easy to buy, but too easy to identify when you sell it at the other end (assuming you don't have private art collector connections).

Up to a couple of years ago, you could just launder it through a casino, but now they have more stringent identification procedures since the AML initiatives came in.

I can't think of an easy, fast, liquid way of getting it out of the country. Electronic transfer may be the only way to go, but it'd take ages to forward it through sufficient intermediary banks to make it hard to trace.
Lets face it, $10m isn't enough to be worthwhile...

 

[So_Cynical]

Any comments on what you would do, if it happened to you, and you had a good chance of getting away with it?

gg

10 mill in my account and i would most certainly try....no way in hell just hand it back!

First u have to get your hands on the actual cash...so first off u go around a few branches the
first day and withdraw amounts of what 20K x 10 trips = 200K repeat for 3 weeks.

Ok so the plans falling apart at this point...so i spose u take the punt and try to withdraw a mill cash...why.

Ok so ill internet transfer to my broking account and buy 10 mill of shares then mmmm.

ok so u go to the major city branches and with draw and transfer it all on the first day....if it
works u run...if not its all over.

 

[trillionaire#1]

honestly id fess up,trading stocks makes me anxious enough
sneeking around the globe with interpol,bank investigators and god knows
who else chasing me and my bulging pockets of stolen loot doesnt appeal
so much.

might be quite the adventure for them though.
maybe they could whip the money to overseas accounts then head over and
buy a mega expensive sail boat, loiter around the oceans for a few months before swapping it for property and some new ids from a dodgy country.

hell maybe i would keep it.

 

[nunthewiser]

greetings from an unamed now privately owned lil island in the sun

wish u were here

yours sincerely

Huan Di Zhang ...............aka nunthewiser

 

[nulla nulla]

I find it interesting that a group of Day Traders would approach this from the perspective of "Take the Money and Run" knowing full well the life style there after would be one of "hide and seek", with problems moving the money arround and being able to access it to cover costs.

I know of an instance in the past where a bank accidently credited a business with $80,000.00. The business reported the error, the bank said they would look into it. In the time it took the bank to confirm the error and advise the business it would be taking the money back, the business floated the money on the short term money market and made a handsome profit.

When the bank tried to apply interest to the business, the business told them to get stuffed as the error had been reported as soon as the funds were incorrectly credited. The bank graciously decided not to apply interest. I haven't heard yet how long it took for the bank to realise their error.

In this scenario, $10,000,000.00, you would be transferring the daily limit into your trading account and having a birthday party playing with big blue chip shares, fx etc etc, quietly pocketing the profits before the bank realised its error and took steps to remove the inflated overdraft and request repayment of the shortfall.