"Not Guilty" to all chargers - 'Accidental millionaire' (TVNZ)
The woman who allegedly fled to Hong Kong after $10 million was mistakenly deposited into her former Chinese boyfriend's bank account has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Kara Hurring appeared in the Rotorua District Court today facing 26 counts of theft to the value of approximately $11,000 and two counts of international money laundering to the value of more than $230,550.
The alleged offences happened when a $10 million overdraft facility was mistakenly loaded into her partner Hui Gao's Westpac bank account in April 2009, rather than the $100,000 he had applied for.
It is alleged Gao and Hurring transferred $6,782,000 of the money into other accounts, and then both left New Zealand for Hong Kong - Gao on April 29 and Hurring on May 3.
The error was discovered on May 5, and approximately half the money was retrieved from New Zealand accounts, leaving $3,872,000 unrecovered.
Hurring returned to New Zealand in February last year.
Gao was arrested by Interpol in September last year as he was crossing into Hong Kong. He returned to the country in December and went straight to prison.
In February, the Chinese-New Zealander was granted bail at the High Court in Auckland. He faces 16 charges of theft and 11 of money laundering.
The bank, left red-faced by the error, fired the teller responsible for misplacing the decimal point and has been working with authorities.
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