The "runaway millionaires" were sentenced in Rotorua District Court today.
Gao, 31, faces four years and seven months in jail and his former girlfriend Kara Hurring, 33, is set to spend nine months on home detention.
But while Gao may be behind bars, Westpac bank is still trying to recover $3.8 million after successfully clawing back $2.9m of the $6.7m Gao managed to transfer to overseas bank accounts.
Judge Philip Cooper, in sentencing Gao, noted that he had not revealed where he stashed the missing millions.
The bank had little further joy in court, when Hurring, who used Gao's credit card while the pair were on the run, has been ordered to pay back less than $12,000 at $75 a week. That will take three years.
The bank and police are refusing to comment on the case.
Auckland University law professor Bill Hodge believes Gao may actually get to enjoy the millions once he is released and returns to China.
The case was similar to financial fraudsters, who still managed to live the high-life from their ill-gotten gains by salting it away where authorities could not reach it.
"I'd be pretty cheesed off if I was the bank," Prof Hodge told NZ Newswire.
He was surprised Gao was not ordered to pay reparation at sentencing, as that would have been the bank's best chance to recover the money, rather than following up with an expensive civil claim.
"You can't get blood out of a stone, and if the stone has hidden the money across the border in Hong Kong..."
Prof Hodge said the bank's private investigators may have exhausted their options in tracking down the money.
It would be expensive to hire Chinese private investigators to follow Gao, who could easily disappear into China's 1.2 billion-strong population.
The bank had to weigh up its chances of success, he said.
Massey University banking expert David Tripe says it will be pure guesswork.
"But of course the standard old proposition is that the longer you spend, the chances of recovery reduce with the passage of time," he told NZ Newswire.
Gao will be eligible for parole after one third of his sentence.
Dr Tripe said he believed there would be "a fair chance" Westpac will keep tabs on Gao after his release in an effort to track down its money.
Gao and Hurring had more misfortune than fortune by April 2009. He owned an ailing BP service station in Rotorua and the couple's relationship was on the rocks.
Gao had applied for a $100,000 overdraft with Westpac. He planned to use the money to revamp the petrol station and sell it.
Instead, a "human error" gave him $10 million.
"I'm f***ing rich," Gao reportedly told Hurring at the time.
Hurring later told police Gao said he'd won Lotto.
The couple told friends they were going on holiday, left a note at the service station to say it had gone under, and skipped the country, abandoning their car at Auckland Airport.
Gao fled first, while Hurring followed him to Hong Kong with her daughter four days later.
He was alleged to have transferred $6.7m to accounts in China using remittance companies in Auckland before Westpac froze his accounts two weeks after the blunder.
The pair had a son who was born while they were on the run.
Following an international manhunt lasting more than two years Gao was arrested trying to enter Hong Kong from China in September last year, and was extradited to New Zealand two months later.
In June he pleaded guilty to seven theft charges when he appeared in Auckland District Court.
Hurring was arrested when she came back to New Zealand voluntarily in February last year after 22 months on the run.
She said the first she knew of the stolen millions was when she saw a story on television in China.
In May a jury took just an hour to find her guilty of 30 charges relating to the overdraft error.
The pair are now separated. As are Westpac and its $3.8m.
