According to court filings, the beneficiary bought a lavish mansion with some of the money after receiving it.
Local news source 7News reports that Singaporean cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com made a mistake and accidentally refunded two Melbourne ladies, Manivel Thevamanogari and her sister Gangadory Thevamanogari, an amount of AUD$10.5 million.
An employee allegedly entered an account number in place of the refund amount in the payment section, which caused an incorrect transfer to their bank account.
The incident happened in May 2021, but it wasn’t detected until a December 2021 yearly audit. The cash must now be given back to the business, the Victoria Supreme Court ordered following the filing of a case.
It turns out, though, that Manivel has spent AUD$1.35 million of the money on a five-bedroom luxury house in Craigieburn. She was given the go-ahead to sell the property and refund the money or risk being charged with contempt of court. In October, the case will be heard in court again.
Justin Lawrence from Henderson and Ball Lawyers commented on the matter as follows:
“There’s no doubt that if you saw that in your account, you would know it shouldn’t be there, and the onus is actually on you to call the sender and say, look, that shouldn’t have come into my account.”
Centralized financial institutions have the ability to undo mistakes in transactions, in contrast to crypto transactions, which are final and irreversible.
The funds from Crypto.com were transferred out of the original account after the receipt, thus a straightforward transaction reversal would not have been possible in this case given the time it took to realize the error and the timing of the transfer.