Ex-bank CEO gets 24 years after falling for crypto scam, causing bank collapse

A federal judge sentenced a 53-year-old Kansas man to more than 24 years in prison after the former bank CEO abused his trusted position to embezzle $47 million after falling for a cryptocurrency scam that he believed would make him wildly rich.

In a press release, the US Attorney's Office said that Shan Hanes was driven by "greed" when directing bank employees to transfer millions in funds to a sketchy crypto wallet managed by still-unknown third parties behind the so-called "pig butchering" scheme.

Hanes was first targeted by scammers in late 2022, apparently when he got a message from an unidentified co-conspirator on WhatsApp, prosecutors said. After blowing through his own funds seeking promised profits, Hanes stole tens of thousands from a local church, then a local investor club, and finally his daughter's college fund, NBC News reported. Then when all those wells dried up, he started stealing bank funds—all in the false hopes that sending more and more money to the scammers would somehow "unlock the supposed returns" on his crypto investments.