Tumbrella loves this story. A Kiwi couple are on the run – probably in Asia – after a bank bungle gave them millions of dollars.
Leo Gao and Kara Yang-Hurring from Rotorua fled New Zealand after a Westpac staff member accidentally deposited $NZ10 million into their account after they applied for a $NZ10,000 business overdraft.
Some other nuns on the run, less recently
Would you? We jolly buggering would.
But the fugitive couple and their entourage have been traced to Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China, largely via some indiscreet updates on Facebook (like, duh!).
A relative of the couple who is believed to have fled with the pair, has told friends she is drinking Chinese beer and enjoying the Asian heat.
Meanwhile the bank employee who blundered is being counselled after becoming traumatised by the error.
The bank has since recovered about $NZ6 million (boo!), but the couple (yay!) – who ran a BP service station in Rotorua that had just been put into receivership – skipped the country with the remaining millions. Police announced they are hunting the pair.
Read more here
From Kiwis on the run to nuns on the run and charges have been dropped against 17 British tourists arrested in Crete for dressing as nuns and donning lingerie.
The 17 male tourists turned up in court still dressed in their nun outfits and lingerie to face charges of insulting the Catholic church.
“They were dressed like nuns, carrying crosses, but wearing thongs under their skirts and showing people their bottoms and the rest,” said a police official who declined to be named.
The tourists had reportedly flashed their bottoms in public, however no one showed up to testify their behaviour was offensive.
The tourists, mainly from Bristol, UK, and aged between 18 to 65, were arrested in the coastal town of Malia, a popular resort for young travellers with a long tradition of drunken tourist antics.
Read more and see a very funny pic here
Back in New Zealand, a town has gone to extreme lengths to ward off bad luck by banishing the number 13.
Palmerston North, on the North Island, has a council policy to jump street numbers from number 11 to 15 to avoid the unlucky figure.
The bizarre policy is in place so people with triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), are not deterred from buying homes carrying the number on the letterbox.
This is the latest foray onto the front page for Palmerston North, which is often the butt of good-humoured jokes in New Zealand.
The university town hit the news last month when a local Australian motel owner decided to ban residents of a nearby town from staying, because they were too noisy and troublesome.
Sydneysider Steve Donnelly was dubbed “Basil Fawlty” and ironically the British comedian John Cleese, who played the iconic Fawlty Towers character, once made headlines himself by saying he had a “bloody miserable” time in the city.
He labelled it the suicide capital of New Zealand, saying: “If you ever do want to kill yourself but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”
Palmerston North hit back by renaming its rubbish dump after him.
