These days the average American faces the daunting task of avoiding countless text message, email, and phone call scams that are attempting to entrap them each and every day.
Most of these scams are easily detectable and avoidable, but others often catch unsuspecting Americans off guard and lead them down a road of pure misery.
And a bank CEO is being thrown in prison for falling victim to this massive “pig butchering” scam.
Shan Hanes stole over $47 million from his local community
In August, CNBC reported about a bank that committed a “pig butchering” scam that robbed millions from unsuspecting customers.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seized assets from Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, after a massive embezzlement scheme involving their CEO Shan Hanes.
The CEO was convicted and sentenced to over 24 years in prison.
— File Manager (@mdbean33) November 11, 2024
According to CNBC, Hanes stole over $47 million over the course of eight weeks by wiring money and attempting to “buy cryptocurrency.”
The CEO was said to have been trying to appease scammers that had “insisted they needed more funds to unlock the supposed returns on his investments.”
The kicker, Hanes never actually gained access to any of those “returns,” and instead lost everything, including the money of his bank’s clients.
CNBC reached out to Hanes’s neighbors for comments and managed to speak with Brian Mitchell who had been his neighbor for years.
“There were people who lost 70, 80% of their retirement,” Mitchell said.
93-year-old woman left unable to “afford a nursing home”
Despite his hefty sentence, prosecutors noted that Hanes had begun his scam after he was targeted by a “pig-butchering” scam.
Reports indicate that Hanes didn’t just lose his clients’ money, but also some of his own.
When the scammers insisted that they needed more, he began to steal it.
Court records explained that this type of scam occurs when “a scammer convinces a victim (a pig) to invest in supposedly legitimate currency investment opportunities. . .”
In the end, the pig doesn’t get anything, and the scammers walk away with all their money.
The CEO’s actions resulted in a windfall of losses for the small town of Elkhart.
According to the report, Hanes “swindled funds from a local church and investment club—and a daughter’s college savings account.”
One 93-year-old woman was left unable to “afford a nursing home” according to his neighbor’s comments.”
All with nothing more than a half-hearted “sorry” at the end that left his friends and neighbors in shock.
At the time, law enforcement had still not identified the criminals who roped Hanes into the scheme.
But on November 4, the victims finally got what they were waiting for.
Victim: After years of financial stress, I can finally breathe
Years after a scam that robbed the tiny town of Elkhart of millions of dollars, the town finally had something to celebrate.
“A Wichita courtroom rang out with sobs and cheers when over two dozen people learned that their life savings had been recovered after being lost by a local bank,” Good News Network reports.
— File Manager (@mdbean33) November 11, 2024
The town had nearly lost all hope after the scheme led to the bank’s closure in 2023. Now the Department of Justice has announced that over $8 million would be returned to the victims of the crime.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office-District of Kansas thanks the FBI for its diligent investigations that led to the discovery and recovery of over $8 million in stolen funds,” U.S. Attorney Kate E. Brubacher said.
https://t.co/M8FRPOXViv pic.twitter.com/TV8esEueCp
— File Manager (@mdbean33) November 11, 2024
“Through Hanes’s conviction and prison sentence, the Department of Justice obtained justice for the victims, and now with this court order, those victims will receive some financial relief,” she added.
According to the Associated Press, one victim named Margaret Grice was only expecting to get $1,000 after years of waiting—but she had her entire 401k returned to the tune of $250,000.
https://t.co/EYyqd41ay4 pic.twitter.com/BChFrb7EG5
— File Manager (@mdbean33) November 11, 2024
“I’m just really thrilled,” Grice said, adding that she can finally “breathe.”
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