In 2012, a man in Hong Kong had his bank credit him $7 million by mistake. He moved $6.8 million to other accounts before fleeing to Hong Kong.
He was subsequently apprehended and sent back to the US to face charges.This is not the first time something like has occurred. A guy in the United Kingdom was erroneously credited with £2 million (about $3 million at the time) by his bank in 2009.
Before being apprehended, he transferred £1.7 million to other accounts.These kinds of errors are not uncommon.
In reality, a research conducted by the University of Cambridge discovered that financial transaction errors occur in approximately 2% of all transactions. That may not seem like much, but when you consider the billions of financial transactions that occur every day, it adds up to a lot of errors.Fortunately, most of these errors are discovered before any money is exchanged.
However, in the case of the Hong Kong man, he was able to escape with $6.8 million.The moral of the story is that if you ever find yourself suddenly and unexpectedly wealthy, don't spend it all in one spot.
You never know when the authorities will figure out what happened and come after your money.