Shan Hanes, the former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank, got hit with a 24-year prison sentence for losing $47 million in a cryptocurrency scam. Hanes fell for a classic “pig butchering” scheme that played on his greed and led him down a path of fraud and deception.
Over just eight weeks in 2023, he wired money to crypto wallets controlled by scammers, which led to the bank’s collapse and an FDIC takeover. The fall of Heartland Tri-State Bank was one of only five U.S. bank failures last year.
Hanes didn’t profit from any of it. Instead, he lost every penny and brought down the lives of many along with him. He pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement by a bank officer in May.
During the hearing, victims had a chance to confront him, but Hanes offered little more than a weak apology. Brian Mitchell, Hanes’ former neighbor and a local businessman, summed it up by calling his actions “pure evil.”
Around 30 shareholders saw their investments wiped out. Some people lost up to 80% of their retirement savings. One woman can’t even afford a nursing home for her 93-year-old mother now, and another can’t retire because of what Hanes did.
Despite the devastating impact, Hanes barely showed any remorse. He glanced at the judge and muttered a half-hearted “Sorry,” but that was all anyone got out of him.
In the beginning, Hanes used his own money to buy crypto, but it didn’t take long for him to start dipping into other people’s pockets.
He stole $40,000 from the Elkhart Church of Christ, $10,000 from the Santa Fe Investment Club, $60,000 from his daughter’s college fund, and nearly $1 million from the Elkhart Financial Corporation.
By May 2023, Hanes had started raiding the bank’s funds. He began with a $5,000 wire transfer, but within days, the amounts skyrocketed. On May 30, he wired $1.5 million and did it again the next day.
Then came the big hits: two wire transfers totaling $6.7 million, followed by another $10 million less than two weeks later, and then another $3.3 million. The money was disappearing fast, and nobody at the bank seemed to be able to stop him.
Hanes had complete control over the bank and used that to his advantage. He told employees to make the wire transfers, and they did—without questioning him.
He wasn’t charged until February this year, and he spent the time between then and his sentencing under house arrest. Now, he’s behind bars, and the community he once served is left to pick up the pieces.
