The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has recovered more than $8 million worth of digital assets to repay shareholders of a bank that failed after its chief executive funneled millions of dollars of depositor money into a crypto scheme.
In 2023, Shan Hanes, the CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank (HTSB) in Elkhart, Kansas, sent a total of $47.1 million of the bank’s funds to a crypto scheme that turned out to be a blatant scam.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that Hanes had fallen prey to “pig butchering,” a scheme where scammers build relationships with their targeted victims to lure them into making fraudulent investments.
The bank’s customers got their deposits back because the institution was insured through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
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