Global Hunt On For 'Accidental Millionaires'

An international manhunt is under way for a New Zealand couple who are on the run after a bank mistakenly paid them 10 million New Zealand dollars (US $6 million) when they applied for a loan of just $10,000.

New Zealand authorities are taking help from Interpol to locate the couple who disappeared two days after an employee error at Westpac bank paid them 1,000 times the amount they asked for.

The accidental millionaires, who have not been identified by authorities but are believed to come from Rotorua, are thought to have left the country.

"At this time I am not prepared to disclose the amount of money involved, name the individuals or business involved, or discuss which country the individuals may be in right now," Detective Senior Sergeant David Harvey of the New Zealand police told reporters.

However, local media has identified the couple as Leo Gao and his Australian girlfriend Cara Young, adding police believes they are now in China.

The bank, too, would only say it was "pursuing vigorous criminal and civil action to recover a sum of money stolen."

TVNZ reports the couple applied for the $10,000 loan for a service station they owned. But when they discovered that the bank had mistakenly deposited $10 million, they closed the service station's doors the same day and fled.

"Saturday, Sunday, we realized something else was up," Rotorua resident Tania Davies tells the station. "They'd done a runner. It's such a big world, they could just disappear."

Westpac is one of the New Zealand's largest banks with more than one million customers.

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