By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
GREG Lindberg, a notorious scammer and once a self-proclaimed billionaire, has been was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a $2 billion fraud scheme.
Lindberg, a Yale-educated insurance entrepreneur, founded Eli Global LLC and owned Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG). Prosecutors said he diverted about $2 billion in policyholders’ funds from insurance companies he controlled.
According to court documents and trial evidence, Lindberg conspired with others from at least 2016 through at least 2019 to defraud insurance companies, third parties and hundreds of thousands of policyholders.
“Lindberg used his ill-gotten gains to fund a lavish lifestyle, buying private jets, mansions and a 200-foot luxury yacht,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The Department of Justice said he and his co-conspirators deceived the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) and other regulators. They also evaded safeguards designed to protect policyholders.
“Lindberg and his co-conspirators caused companies he controlled in North Carolina, Bermuda, Malta, and elsewhere to invest more than $2 billion in loans and other securities with his own affiliated companies and laundered the proceeds of the scheme,” the Department of Justice said.
“Lindberg directed the scheme and personally benefitted from the fraud in part by “forgiving” more than $125 million in loans to himself from the insurance companies that he controlled.”
Eli Global operated as a private-equity firm, buying a significant number of insurance businesses.
In late 2017, a spokesperson for Lindberg stated that his net worth was $1.7 billion.
The Department of Justice said Lindberg and others used ‘circular transactions’ across a network of entities funded by insurance company money. They also misled regulators, ratings agencies, insurers and policyholders about those transactions.
Greg Lindberg conviction
As the scheme began to unravel, prosecutors said Lindberg and others engaged in a bribery conspiracy from April 2017 to August 2018. They tried to influence the Commissioner of Insurance at the NCDOI through campaign contributions and other benefits.
In exchange, they sought the removal of a senior regulator overseeing GBIG. The Department of Justice said the effort was “for the purpose of causing the Commissioner of Insurance of the NCDOI to take official action favorable to Lindberg’s company, GBIG”.
The Department of Justice said: “To date, thousands of individual policyholders and other victims are collectively still owed more than $1 billion.
Lindberg pleaded guilty in November 2024 to conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S. In May 2024, a federal jury convicted Lindberg of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
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