Millions of dollars were unintentionally handed to an Australian woman by a well-known cryptocurrency trading company, who neglected to spot the blunder for seven months.
A Millionaire Was Created by a Wrongful Refund.
While processing a $100 refund in May 2021, Crypto.com, doing business as Foris GFS in Australia, made a mistake and transferred $10.5 million to Thevamanogari Manivel from Melbourne instead of the refund money.
The mistake was discovered seven months later during an audit, and the cryptocurrency trading platform made an effort to recoup the funds that were misplaced by filing a lawsuit in the Victorian Supreme Court. This was done after one of its representatives unintentionally entered the customer’s bank account in the payment amount field.
After the exchange did some enquiries with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and subsequently requested freezing orders for her bank account and her assets to the amount of the unlawful payment, the proceedings against Manivel started in February of this year.
According to testimony given in court, Manivel transferred $10.1 million to a joint account right away after receiving the incorrect payment. At the end of January of this year, she sent $430,000 to her daughter Raveena Vijian.
The following month, she bought a four-bedroom home in Cragieburn, in Melbourne’s north, for $1.35 million on behalf of her sister Thilagavathy Gangadory, who lives in Malaysia, using money from both the joint account and her daughter’s account. Gangadory became the property’s registered owner despite the fact that the purchase was intended to be a gift.
Recovering the Investment Property Funds
The lawyers for Crypto.com repeatedly tried to serve Gangadory after acquiring freezing orders against Manivel’s sister but were unsuccessful since she never replied to their emails. However, Gangadory replied to an email from Manivel’s attorneys and this email was enough for the court to presume that she was served by a substituted service order.
The Victorian Supreme Court decided that the Cragieburn property should be sold, with the money going to the owner of the cryptocurrency exchange, taking into account Crypto.com’s declaration of relief.
The court also decided that Gangadory must pay the plaintiff $27,369.64 in legal fees for the lawsuit as well as interest from March 2022 until the decision date, calculated using the statutory interest rate applicable to judgment debts.
