Editorial: Sentencing a long time coming

I still remember the day when I received a call from someone saying they'd heard police were investigating a case where a bank had accidentally put $10 million into a Rotorua businessman's account.

Initially I thought "yeah right, not in Rotorua". But then I got on the phone to police, and sure enough the person who tipped us off was right.

During that first call, police didn't want to say how much was involved and were only prepared to say an investigation had been launched into a substantial sum of money that had been mistakenly advanced from Westpac.

Police said they'd received a complaint from Westpac relating to people living in Rotorua. Police also wouldn't confirm who the people were.

However, the day after The Daily Post broke the story, police didn't have much choice but to reveal how much was involved and who was involved as media organisations throughout New Zealand and overseas swarmed in.

Media representatives from all corners of the country arrived in Rotorua for a police press conference.

That first week was frantic. We had stories on the front page every day during that week.

It seemed people wanted to know about Gao and Hurring and how they managed to get away with millions of dollars.

People also wanted to share their own stories of how they'd had money accidentally put into their accounts by a bank.

There was worldwide interest in the case with several international media organisations contacting The Daily Post for an interview over the past three years.

Yesterday I was interviewed live on BBC World News about how we broke the story and the reactions from yesterday's sentencings.

There were even two Facebook groups set up purporting to support Gao, and within a few days of the news breaking one of the groups Go Leo Gao - Go You Good Thing had attracted 153 members while another group We Support Leo Gao and his 10 Million Dollars - Run Leo Run had attracted 49.

One cheeky post on one of the Facebook pages written by a man based in New York read "New face $20,000, plane tickets $5000, leaving junker at airport $500 - screwing a major bank - PRICELESS".

I remember going home to search Facebook for people named Leo Gao and "friending" a few hoping I might be able to find him before police. I remember sending a private message to one asking if he was the Leo Gao wanted by police.

He politely wrote back saying he wasn't. To this day I wonder if it actually was him. Having now seen the wanted Leo Gao in person in court, the person I "friended" on Facebook did have some similar features.

One of the heartwarming stories to come out of this saga was the generousity shown by Rotorua's Jeffrey Morgan who gave Shybu Antony his job at Shell Te Ngae.

Mr Antony had been employed by Gao at the BP station and had been left jobless with the runaway millionaire's departure from New Zealand.

Mr Morgan said he wanted to give Mr Antony his job to make sure Mr Antony and his young family had all the help they could get.

Lots happened in those first few weeks but then things started to die down and the talk around town turned to "will police get this pair?".

Every few months I'd call police to update readers on their search for Gao and Hurring.

I remember being on a day off work and driving to Tauranga in February last year when I heard on the radio Hurring had been arrested at Auckland Airport. I was gutted that I wasn't working that day.

And then of all things I was away on the day news broke at the end of September that Gao had been found.

As for yesterday - it certainly has been a long time coming.