A 35-year-old Stone Mountain woman who once worked as a universal banker at multiple Ameris Bank branches around Atlanta is now facing federal charges after prosecutors say she took a kickback of just over $1,000 to help siphon nearly $1 million out of customer accounts and into cryptocurrency wallets. Mercedes Henry was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested before appearing in Atlanta federal court, according to charging documents.
Henry faces charges of bank fraud, access device fraud, and bribery, according to the Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors allege that between September and November 2021, Henry used her access as a bank employee to pull sensitive account identifiers from six Ameris Bank customer accounts, and that co-conspirators used that information to link the accounts to Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange platform. As reported by 95.5 WSB, Henry was employed at Ameris Bank locations across the Atlanta area at the time of the alleged scheme.
The result, per the indictment, was approximately $931,500 in unauthorized transfers moved directly from victims' bank accounts into Coinbase accounts controlled by Henry's co-conspirators. In exchange for extracting the account data that made those transfers possible, prosecutors say Henry accepted more than $1,000 — a strikingly small payout relative to the scale of the alleged theft.
How the Money Moved From Bank Accounts to Crypto
Coinbase's own user terms explain the mechanical link at the center of the case: the platform uses customers' bank account numbers and routing identifiers to initiate Automated Clearing House transfers, letting an account holder buy digital assets directly with bank funds, according to Coinbase's user agreement. Once Henry allegedly supplied the account numbers and identifiers, that same ACH pipeline became the route for pulling money out of Ameris Bank accounts and into crypto wallets the government says were controlled by her co-conspirators.
Theodore S. Hertzberg, whose office presented the charges in court, said Henry allegedly stole sensitive information to facilitate nearly $1 million of fraudulent transfers from victims' bank accounts to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by her co-conspirators, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia said. Hertzberg added that law enforcement will work with private-sector partners to identify, arrest, and punish criminals involved in the scheme, per the same office's statement.
FBI Points to Pattern of Insider Financial Crimes
FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Marlo Graham said federal law enforcement is actively deploying specialized tools to uncover what she called “crimes of greed and opportunity” committed by financial insiders, according to the Department of Justice. FBI Atlanta is involved in investigating the alleged scheme, officials said.
The case echoes another high-profile insider fraud out of metro Atlanta: former resident Kayricka Wortham was sentenced in 2023 to 16 years in federal prison, with an additional year added in 2026 for forging a judge's signature, after executing a $9.4 million fraud scheme that abused vendor payment systems while she worked inside Amazon, according to the Department of Justice. Northern Georgia federal prosecutors have shown a consistent pattern of pursuing multi-million dollar insider fraud cases involving employees who exploit trusted internal access.
Ameris Bank, the victim institution in Henry's case, is a state-chartered financial institution headquartered in Atlanta that managed roughly $28.5 billion in total assets and operated 163 full-service retail locations across five southeastern states as of mid-2026, per Ameris Bancorp.
What Henry Could Face in Federal Court
The charges against Henry carry substantial statutory exposure. A bank fraud conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1344 carries a maximum penalty of up to 30 years in federal prison and fines of up to $1,000,000 per count, according to the Department of Justice. Access device fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1029 carry maximum sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years per count, depending on whether unauthorized account numbers or access devices were trafficked or used.
The bribery charge carries its own steep penalties. Under 18 U.S.C. § 215, bank employees who corruptly solicit or accept anything of value exceeding $1,000 in connection with financial institution business face felony penalties of up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $1,000,000 or three times the value of the bribe, the Department of Justice says.
The case also lands amid a surge in cryptocurrency-linked fraud nationwide. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that total cyber-enabled fraud losses topped $20 billion in 2025, with cryptocurrency-related complaints alone accounting for more than $11 billion of those losses across 181,565 reported incidents across the country, according to the FBI.
