WICHITA, KANSAS — Sobs of relief broke out in a Kansas federal courtroom Monday when dozens of people whose savings were embezzled by a bank CEO learned that federal law enforcement had recovered their money.

“I just can’t describe the weight that’s been taken off of us,” said Bart Camilli, 70, who, with his wife Cleo, had just learned they would get back nearly $450,000 — money that Bart started saving at age 18 when he bought his first individual pension. account. “It’s life-changing.”

In August, former Kansas bank CEO Shan Hanes was sentenced to 24 years in prison after stealing $47 million from customer accounts and transferring the money to cryptocurrency accounts managed 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 in the scheme. The deposits were “thrown into the ether,” prosecutor Aaron Smith said.

Hanes’ Heartland Tri-State Bank, drained of cash, was shut down by federal regulators and sold to another financial institution. The customers’ savings and checking accounts, totaling $47.1 million, were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which reimbursed their losses.

But there were still 30 shareholders of the rural community bank that Hanes helped found – including his close family friends and neighbors – who believed they had lost $8.3 million in investments: well-planned retirements were in turmoil, funds for long-term care of the elderly disappeared, education funds and bequests for children and grandchildren were zeroed out.

Shareholders stood to cheer Federal Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita on Monday after he told them, one at a time, that they would be fully reimbursed. The FBI recovered funds from a cryptocurrency account held by Tether Ltd. in the Cayman Islands.

At a previous sentencing hearing, those victims called Hanes a “deceitful cheater and liar” and “pure evil.”

Margaret Grice showed up in court Monday thinking she would get $1,000 back. Instead, she learned she would get back nearly $250,000, or her entire 401(k).

“I’m really excited,” she said. “I can breathe.”

Prosecutors said Hanes, who was CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, lost money in a scam called “hog butchery,” or the way pigs are fattened before slaughter . In this scam, a third party gains the victims’ trust and, over time, convinces them to invest all their money in a cryptocurrency, which immediately disappears. US and UN officials say these diets are proliferating, with scammers found primarily in Southeast Asia and increasingly taking advantage of Americans.

Hanes began purchasing what he thought was $5,000 in cryptocurrency in late 2022, by communicating with someone who had contacted WhatsApp, according to court records. A few months later, he transferred the funds from his church and investment club. Records show the scam accelerated during the summer of 2023, when Hanes wired $47.1 million from customer accounts in 11 wire transfers over just eight weeks. He said each transfer was necessary to terminate the investment and cash out, according to court records. He observed, on a fake website, that the money appeared to be worth more than $200 million.

“He was supposed to take some of the money, and the rest of the money was supposed to go back to the bank,” said his lawyer John Stang. “Now it’s fiction, it didn’t exist. We all know it now… It completely failed.

Hanes, who was not in court Monday, apologized during an earlier sentencing hearing.

“From the depths of my soul, I had no intention of causing the harm that I did,” he said. “I will always struggle to understand how I was duped and how what I thought was just getting the money back was what made it worse.”

Prosecutors said Hanes was not only the victim of a fraud, but crossed the line when he began taking customers’ money and violating banking regulations. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement by a bank officer in May.

His important position in his hometown of 2,000 inhabitants allowed him to get by more easily, a Federal Reserve System Investigation find; he had served on the school board, volunteered as a swim meet official, and served on the Kansas Bankers Association.

He was also a banking leader beyond his rural community. In recent years, he has testified before congressional committees on the importance of local banks in agricultural communities, and he served as director of the American Bankers Association, which represents almost all banking assets in the United States.

On Monday, prosecutors said the FDIC wanted reimbursement for insurance claims it paid out to bank customers. But Judge Broomes said the economic circumstances of shareholders “who became insolvent as a result of a fraudulent scheme” justified paying them off first, before the FDIC recovers anything.

Hanes, 53, could be nearly 70 years old when he is released and is unlikely to be able to pay the FDIC the $47.1 million still owed.

In a court filing, Hanes and his attorney attempted to explain what happened.

“Mr. Hanes made some very poor choices after being caught in an extremely well-managed cryptocurrency scam,” they said. “He was the pig that was slaughtered.”