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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Lifestyle
Leigh Mcmanus & David Kent

Dad becomes 25th richest man in world after €45 billion lands in account after bank error

A family were made multi billionaires when a banking mishap saw €45 billion deposited into one lucky dad's account, momentarily making him the 25th richest man in the world.

Darren James was alerted to the huge sum by his staggered wife, who called him in a stupor.

The dad-of-two, from Louisiana in the US, was - albeit for a short time - worth over 10 times more than Virgin boss Richard Branson.

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"It was crazy just to see what it looks like because I've never seen that many zeros in my life," he told BR Proud.

I’m like where did that come from?" he told FOX9 in a separate interview after the confusion in June 2021.

"And all we were thinking was who’s going to be knocking on our door…because we don’t know anybody with that type of money to begin with."

Darren admitted to what had happened and arranged for the money to go back to its rightful owner.

He contacted his bank, Chase, but did admit that he fantisised what he could do with the money.

"We knew it wasn't ours," he said. "We didn’t earn it, so we couldn’t do anything with it."

As a former law enforcement officer for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety, the now-real estate agent thought better of keeping the haul, knowing it would be considered theft.

When he alerted Chase, they immediately began work to get the funds back, but never said where the money came from, or how the error came about.

The money was gone within a few days.

"It was a hold placed on it. It showed up on Saturday to make a deposit for our daughter. It stayed there Sunday, Monday and Tuesday it was gone."

The do-gooder said that if he ever found himself with that sort of money legitimately he would help others.

"I would bless other people—to give people hope that there is positive in this world," he continued. "That’s what my biggest dream is."

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