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Former Heartland Tri-State Bank CEO Shan Hanes was sentenced to 293 months in federal prison—24 years and five months—after pleading guilty to embezzling $47.1 million in bank funds and wiring it to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by scammers. The transfers helped cause the Kansas bank’s failure. Hanes was deceived by a crypto confidence scam, but his role as a victim did not excuse his criminal responsibility as the bank officer who moved the money.
What happened to Shan Hanes?
Hanes was the chief executive of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas. From May through July 2023, he initiated 11 outgoing wire transfers totaling $47.1 million in bank funds to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by unidentified third parties. He pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement by a bank officer. On August 19, 2024, a federal court sentenced him to 293 months in prison. The Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General’s sentencing announcement describes the transfers, plea and sentence.
The sentence is often rounded to “24 years,” but 293 months is 24 years and five months. The $47.1 million was bank money sent in wires; it should not be described as Hanes’s personal money or as an amount he alone lost.
How did the crypto scam persuade him to send money?
The FBI describes pig-butchering as a confidence scam in which perpetrators build trust, steer a victim toward what appears to be a profitable investment platform, and encourage larger deposits over time. The FBI says Hanes began with a few thousand dollars in 2022 and, about a year later, wired more than $47 million from customer accounts to scammers. Its case account does not detail exactly how Hanes met or communicated with the scammers, so those specifics are not established publicly there.
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A separate federal forfeiture filing describes a pattern reported in another confidence-scam victim’s case: the person was promised significant returns, made a small withdrawal, then could not withdraw more and was locked out. That example illustrates how a fraudulent platform can appear credible before blocking access, but it is not a documented detail of Hanes’s individual experience. The filing also explains that funds may pass through numerous cryptocurrency addresses and exchange accounts, making them difficult to trace. See the U.S. Department of Justice forfeiture complaint.
Who bore the losses when the bank failed?
The failure affected depositors and shareholders differently. The FBI says customers’ deposits were federally insured, while the bank’s stock became worthless. Approximately 30 local shareholders owned Heartland Tri-State through its holding company; the FBI says they lost more than $8.2 million. Its account quotes FBI Special Agent Sage Hemmert: “These were regular people from southwest Kansas. And a lot of them had their net worth tied up in this bank.”
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The Federal Reserve Board OIG’s sentencing release separately reports $9 million in investor losses and says the FDIC absorbed the $47.1 million bank-fund loss. These are different stakeholder categories and agency reports: the FDIC’s absorption of the bank-fund loss is not a reimbursement to shareholders, whose stock lost its value.
Was any of the money recovered?
Investigators traced funds to an offshore digital wallet and seized more than $8 million, according to the FBI. On November 4, 2024, a judge ordered $8 million in recovered funds distributed among investors who suffered financial losses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Kansas restitution announcement. This recovery was not the full $47.1 million bank-fund loss.
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Recovery should not be assumed in other crypto-fraud cases. The FBI says scammers can move money quickly, and recovery is rare. FBI Forensic Accountant Reed Ptomey put it this way: “With cryptocurrency, that doesn’t happen all the time.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How large is cryptocurrency fraud beyond this case?
The FBI’s 2025 article reports that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 69,000 complaints in 2023 involving financial fraud with a cryptocurrency nexus, with estimated losses exceeding $5.6 billion. Those figures cover cryptocurrency-related financial fraud broadly; they are not totals for pig-butchering alone and do not describe Hanes’s case specifically.
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