this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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[–] PeachMan@lemmy.world 277 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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).

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 38 points 2 months ago (5 children)

even if the crypto thing was NOT a scam (which is rare, I know).

that comment had to hurt the crypto community hard

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

The people who still don't know have built up a level of ignorance to miss any kind of message like that.

[–] msage@programming.dev 14 points 2 months ago

If they could read

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And to think, I almost felt pity for him.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Almost doing some heavy lifting there

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 117 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 59 points 2 months ago

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?

[–] Shawdow194@fedia.io 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"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."

[–] teft@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 69 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

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
[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 66 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Cheap bastard! Who would deny their neighbor coming over to borrow some sugar and a couple mills?

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Uh, a luxury yacht costs a lot more than $2M, $2M gets you a premium fishing/speed boat.

[–] jasoncg@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago

I mean, it's one banana. What could it cost, $10m?

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[–] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 months ago

How could a bank CEO be so stupid

Seriously?

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 50 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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??

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

Yeah, now they'll reconsider if their intended victims have a certain net worth.

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

After endless scams, have people figured out yet that Crypto is a scam?

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 45 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com 20 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Until there is an actual use case for Crypto, it’s definitely a scam as a technology. It exists only for investors and scammers, anyone attempting to actually use it is getting reamed.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

My friend really hyped up crypto as the thing that would replace all local currencies in every country. That we would just have crypto, and thats it.

Thats when I knew it was a scam. My friend is an idiot, and falls for 100% of scams. When he's preaching something, I know it's wrong.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The ancient Greeks invented steam power, but didn't take it any further than a novelty. That doesn't make steam power a "scam."

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 10 points 2 months ago (5 children)

That doesn’t mean cryptocurrencies is like steam power.

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[–] stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 2 months ago

You might have had a salient point if the ancient Greeks made it popular for “solving thirst across the known world,” but really it was a novelty. Or if crypto was marketed as a novelty. But crypto was hyped to be the next big things, spreading around the world, no monetary boundaries. The same people making those claims are spending hundreds of millions on the election to making sure it stay unregulated with no consumer protection.

But sure, crypto somehow parallels steam?

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[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought the same, but changed my mind after my bank card stopped working for foreign services. Now Monero is the most straightforward way to pay for my VPS and domain, since getting a foreign card would be prohibitively expensive, and the local companies with foreign servers - the ones I can pay with my card for - are likely to submit to the same censorship I want to bypass.

Even for those who can use their cards, crypto can be useful - for those who would be endangered by using a KYC payment method (activists and dissidents, for example). Even currencies without privacy protections are still leagues easier to use privately than a KYC method.

[–] stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

99.9% of people could not pay for what they want or need except the handful of niche places that happen to accept it. Can’t pay medical bills with it, can’t buy my food at the grocery store with it, can’t buy my gas with it, can’t really apply it where I want to, only in the few spaces I get to.

That’s not what the developers claimed it would do, or what the investors wanted it to do. It’s not cost effective or simple. It’s created more problems than it’s solved. It flat out a scam.

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For the cases you described, there is the most convenient and anonymous type of money - cash)

But yea, reception is a problem. However, there is still an assortment of services accepting Monero, including the VPS that is vital for me now. It can also be used to buy prepaid cards, for cases when they are actuay accepted.

[–] stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (12 children)

How is it convenient? Its not simple setting up a wallet, picking a coin, registering with a market, hoping that the merchant you want something for happens to take your type of coin? And being anonymous is a turn off for most people- the vast majority of people want consumer protection. Merchants carry higher risk with a volatile, unregulated market, so they are hesitant to accept it.

Why would I pay fees to buy a faux currency, to pay for a pre-paid card of the same currency I used to buy to the faux currency, to spend it on things that can’t be paid for with the faux currency anyway? What?!?!

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh no the poor bank, better have a bailout quick.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The banks customers were not the only people who he stole from. However, I concede the point.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[–] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's still 47 million of everyone's money that could have been better spent

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 3 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They should play Beyonce's Freedom to cap the sentencing

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I hear she doesn't consent to convicted criminals using her songs...

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

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