A courtroom of relief: FBI recovers funds for victims of scammed banker

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Sobs of relief broke out in a federal courtroom in Kansas as dozens of people whose life savings had been embezzled by a bank CEO learned that federal law enforcement had recovered their money. "I just can't describe the weight lifted off of us," said Bart Camilli, 70, who with his wife Cleo had just learned they'd recover close to $450,000—money Bart began saving at 18 when he bought his first individual retirement account. "It's life-changing." In August, former Kansas bank CEO Shan Hanes was sentenced to 24 years after stealing $47 million from customer accounts and wiring the money to cryptocurrency accounts run by scammers. Prosecutors said Hanes also stole $40,000 from his church, $10,000 from an investment club and $60,000 from his daughter's college fund and lost $1.1 million of his own in the scheme. Deposits were "jettisoned into the ether," said prosecutor Aaron Smith. Hanes’s Heartland Tri-State Bank, drained of cash, was shut down by federal regulators and sold to another financial institution. Customers' savings and checking accounts amounting to $47.1 million were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which paid off their losses. But there were still 30 shareholders of the community-owned rural bank Hanes helped found—including his close family friends and neighbors—who thought they lost $8.3 million in investments: well-planned retirements were upended, funds for long-term eldercare gone, education funds and bequests for children and grandchildren zeroed out. The shareholders stood to cheer federal Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita after he told them, one at a time, that they'd be paid back in full. The FBI recovered the funds from a cryptocurrency account held by Tether Ltd. in the Cayman Islands. During an earlier sentencing hearing, these victims had called Hanes a "deceitful cheat and a liar," and "pure evil." Margaret Grice came to court figuring she'd get $1,000 back. Instead, she learned she'd be recovering almost $250,000. "I'm just really thrilled," she said. "I can breathe." This article was provided by The Associated Press.