Kinda misleading or poorly written title. He was not convicted of falling for a crypto scam. He was convicted of embezzling funds from the bank, which he did while pumping them into a dumb crypto scam. It would have been illegal even if the crypto thing was NOT a scam (which is rare, I know).
even if the crypto thing was NOT a scam (which is rare, I know).
that comment had to hurt the crypto community hard
The people who still don’t know have built up a level of ignorance to miss any kind of message like that.
If they could read
TBH I feel like it’s much harder for anti-crypto ideologues to admit that crypto has non-scam usages. Or to admit that fiat currency is a scam so huge that it’s literally destroying the planet.
to be fair, buying drugs or untraceable money transfers are totally a use case of crypto (basically everything that is illegal)
untraceable money transfers
Crypto is very traceable though - every transaction that has ever happened is in a public ledger!
There’s usually a transfer to or from fiat currency at some point, and there’s been several cases where Bitcoin transfers have been traced to a real person using that.
And to think, I almost felt pity for him.
Almost doing some heavy lifting there
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
Wow, what a PoS
It states that he never once received anything back yet was convinced even after being arrested and sending 10s of millions of dollars into a black hole, that he only needed another month or two to earn everything back. How the fuck can someone be duped so hard?
“Many victims will never fully recoup losses to their life savings and retirement funds, but at least we at the Department of Justice can see that Hanes is held criminally responsible for his actions.”
I would hope most people would be made whole through FDIC insurance. That’s 250k per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category.
He was going to pay it all back tho!!! smh.
Wild story, but many things I don’t get:
- How could a bank CEO be so stupid to fall for a financial scam like this? He must know how these work, banks are constantly fighting against scams and warning customers
- How the fuck the bank would allow the CEO to go rogue and request/make these transactions? They have board, supervisory board, risk mgmt, yet nobody stopped or noticed the fraud until his neighbor(!) told them. This institution shouldn’t be allowed to handle people’s money
- Wtf is the attorney’s sad speech about being unsure ppl getting back their savings? They were insured, they get the money back. Pay the fuck up and reimburse your clients for the bank’s mistake
This one blew me away.
According to NBC News, Hanes missed at least one opportunity to realize that he was being scammed. After he asked for a $12 million loan from a neighbor, Brian Mitchell, his neighbor detected the scam and refused to lend the money.
My limit is like $40.
Cheap bastard! Who would deny their neighbor coming over to borrow some sugar and a couple mills?
Well the house is presumably up for purchase now. I feel like I want to be this guy’s neighbor.
Hey Bob, I want to buy a luxury yacht but I only have $12.50 in the bank, can I borrow $2 million please I’ll have it back to you by Friday.
Uh, a luxury yacht costs a lot more than $2M, $2M gets you a premium fishing/speed boat.
I mean, it’s one banana. What could it cost, $10m?
I know, these poors don’t know anything about the struggles we face. (did you know mike just got himself a Benetti that’s 2 meters longer than mine? honestly, who does he think he is)
Damn, even with inflation? You must be super on guard. That being said. I will turn on my A game to shave $0.50 off of a set of coasters from a tourist shop while on vacation.
How could a bank CEO be so stupid
Seriously?
Because the bank was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the FDIC “absorbed the $47.1 million loss” after "Hanes’ fraudulent actions caused HTSB to fail and the bank investors to lose $9 million.
his sentence of more than 24 years is 29 months longer than prosecutors had requested, NBC News reported.
Here, the only reason he’s seeing jail time. Not because he stole, but he stole from the rich. Tanking a bank and losing poor peoples money won’t get you anything. But lose rich peoples money, and you’re going down. There are two justice systems in america, and you don’t have access to the one that works.
Here, the only reason he’s seeing jail time. Not because he stole, but he stole from the rich.
Regardless, maybe the reality that a C-suite executive is spending a quarter century in jail might mean there’s a chance it’ll prevent others from trying something similarly corrupt?
Maybe?
Please??
Yeah, now they’ll reconsider if their intended victims have a certain net worth.
After endless scams, have people figured out yet that Crypto is a scam?
The technology isn’t, but it can be easily abused by malicious actors, using the exact same methods as shown in Wolf of Wall Street.
Bold claim. Zero supporting arguments. Nice.
Oh no the poor bank, better have a bailout quick.
Given that he was embezzling bank funds to funnel into a fake crypto scam, and the people who those funds belonged to were not in fact the bank, and the article suggests those people were not made whole, I’m just gonna say that it’s not about the bank, it’s about the people who lost shit like their life savings to this a-hole.
Because the bank was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the FDIC “absorbed the $47.1 million loss” after “Hanes’ fraudulent actions caused HTSB to fail and the bank investors to lose $9 million,” the US Attorney’s Office said.
It sounds like no customer with the bank lost anything. Only investors who I assume are well off anyways.
The banks customers were not the only people who he stole from. However, I concede the point.
Oh yeah. That’s fair.
I guess the silver lining here was that it could have been so much worse but thank goodness for FDIC.
That’s still 47 million of everyone’s money that could have been better spent
Yeah, that’s 47 million in tax payer dollars. So instead of stealing millions from a few people, it’s pennies from millions of people. Definitely a lot of better things that money could have gone to.
Plenty of people lost most of their retirement savings - FDIC only goes up to 250k which isn’t enough for super frugal FIRE. And definitely not enough when you get old and medical bills are crazy high in Murica.
Ok so I decided to read into this a little more. On FDICs website it says all customer funds should be available backing up my assumption that no customer of the bank lost any money: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/failed-bank-list/heartlandtristate.html
It says:
The full balance of all deposit accounts has been transferred to Dream First Bank, N.A.
That contradicts statements on https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/ex-bank-ceo-gets-24-years-after-falling-for-crypto-scam-causing-bank-collapse/
Victims may never fully recover losses, DOJ says
In the community, people are still struggling to recover, Mitchell told NBC News, noting that some people lost up to 80 percent of their retirement savings. For at least one woman, retirement is impossible now, Mitchell said, and for another local woman, it has become difficult to pay for her 93-year-old mother’s nursing home.
US Attorney Kate E. Brubacher said that it’s hard to say when or if victims will be made whole again.
But it seems like they didn’t let it fail completely and transferred all assets and most liabilities to Dream First Bank? That would be nice for the granny with more than 250K in the account.
Actually 250k is the minimum for FDIC. Also I’m only basing my information on this single article but it says he stole 47 million and then the article goes on to say that FDIC absorbed the 47 million loss. Given this wording it sounds like every single dollar was covered.
They should play Beyonce’s Freedom to cap the sentencing
I hear she doesn’t consent to convicted criminals using her songs…
Even criminals deserve good outro themes. Its just the right thing to do.
Edit: I’ve said previously that for the hilariously guilty, the cue after they make in the interview room should be the intro to Angel by Sarah Maclachlan looped for until they are out of transit
