In a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, magistrate Lisa Stapleton granted Christine Jiaxin Lee, 21, bail and said the woman simply used money given to her, which she now owed the bank back.
The chemical engineering student was arrested while trying to board a plane back to Malaysia, Wednesday night and was subsequently charged with “dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, and knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime”, the news report said.
Taking a different view however, Stapleton countered: “It isn’t proceeds of crime. It’s money we all dream of.”
The magistrate also said while Lee now owed the bank A$4.6 million (RM13.8 million) for spending the bank’s money over four years, she did not break any law per se.
“She didn’t take it (the money) from them (Westpac). They gave it to her,” Stapleton said.
According to the news portal, Lee, a chemical engineering student, had been living in Australia for a year when the unlimited overdraft had been mistakenly given to her.
Between July 2014 and April 2015, Lee allegedly made withdrawals on numerous occasions, totalling $4,653,333.02. Lee’s legal aid lawyer told the court her client had spent some A$1million on handbags, luxury items and some transfers while the other A$3.3 million remained outstanding.
Lee’s bail, which the prosecutor in the case strongly opposed, comes with strict conditions including reporting to Ryde police twice daily, surrendering her emergency passport which she obtained after having lost her original copy and living with her boyfriend, Vincent King, in Rhodes.
Her boyfriend paid her A$1,000 bond.
It was reported however that King only had Malaysian-issued identification and police could not verify who he was, resulting in Lee having to allegedly spend the night in police custody instead.