The bank chasing multimillion-dollar
Rotorua fugitive Leo Gao has begun court action against the owner of
an international casino chain.
Wynn International Marketing, which owns casinos and hotels in
Las Vegas and Macau, is listed as a defendant in court papers filed
by Westpac Bank, The New Zealand Herald reported.
Also on the list of defendants is fugitive Leo Gao, Heights
Services Ltd, Huan Di Zhang and Lei Gao, believed to be Leo Gao's
mother.
Heights Services is the firm under which Leo Gao and Zhang
operated a BP petrol station in Rotorua.
The action was taken after Leo Gao abandoned the BP service
station after Westpac mistakenly credited his account with $10
million after he asked for a $100,000 overdraft.
Gao then allegedly attempted to transfer about $6.7m to other
accounts but the bank managed to recover $2.8m.
Westpac would not say why it named the hotel company as a
defendant.
The Herald on Sunday reported that Aroha Hurring, the sister of
Leo Gao's girlfriend Kara Hurring, had been seen in Macau.
Court documents show Westpac seized two properties in Auckland
and two in Rotorua relating to the BP service station with a
combined value of $1.91 million, as the bank alleges they owe it
$3,782,000.
Detective Senior Sergeant David Harvey said a woman spoken to by
police this seek said Kara Hurring was still in Hong Kong, but she
did not know where Gao was.
The woman was not named by police but was believed to be Aroha
Hurring.
NZPA