Greg Lindberg, the founder of a North Carolina investment firm already convicted this year on bribery charges, pleaded guilty to a new $2 billion fraud.
Lindberg, who founded Eli Global, admitted in federal court in Charlotte on Tuesday that he bought a series of insurance companies over the past decade and then inappropriately invested nearly $2 billion. He defrauded thousands of policyholders to support a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said. His theft generated one of the largest individual fraud prosecutions in the US.
Prosecutors said Lindberg used some of the money to pay personal expenses, such as his credit cards, mortgage and a 214-foot yacht. He also paid an investigative company to do research on women in his life and another company to conduct surveillance on them, according to a February 2023 indictment.
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Conspiracy charges
Lindberg pleaded guilty to two of the 13 charges he faced: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, insurance fraud and investment adviser fraud, and conspiracy to launder money. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
As part of his settlement, Lindberg agreed to help insurance companies recover money for policyholders. He pledged to help identify “billions of dollars in funds to make restitution to all policyholders and other entities,” according to a court document.
Lindberg asked the judge to allow him to turn himself into a halfway house near his home in Tampa, Florida, instead of going to prison, so he could help recover assets. He has eight children under the age of 7 who live with him, and his fiancée lives in Spain without a U.S. visa, his lawyers wrote.
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U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler ordered his immediate detention and set a hearing for Nov. 21 to determine whether he should go to a halfway house. The judge expressed concern about the appearance of favorable treatment.
Amazing Events
Lindberg was previously indicted separately in 2019 for offering a bribe to the state insurance commissioner, who secretly recorded his conversations and cooperated with law enforcement authorities. Lindberg was convicted at trial of bribery and wire fraud and sentenced in 2020 to more than seven years in prison.
In 2022, a federal appeals court overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge had tainted the process by wrongly instructing the jury. Lindberg was released on bail and convicted in May at a retrial, along with a consultant. He was indicted last year for the fraud to which he pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
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Lindberg, who grew up in a blue-collar family in San Mateo, California, attended Yale University, where he founded his first company, which focused on research in the home care industry. Over time, the company expanded through acquisitions and diversified into enterprise software, healthcare technology and financial services, changing its name to Global Growth in 2020, according to its website. The company has invested in more than 120 companies, with assets valued at more than $5 billion, according to the website.
In September, U.S. parole supervision officials accused Lindberg of violating the terms of his release, but did not specify how he did so.
Private plane, Yacht
In 2019, prosecutors said Lindberg posed a flight risk and should not be released on bail because he had a private plane and an ocean-going yacht, registered in the Cayman Islands. They claimed he had access to bank accounts in 18 countries, including Switzerland, Malta, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.
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He also had “significant relationships” with people in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, while donating “millions of dollars to women in Kazakhstan and Russia,” the government said in a court filing.
Lindberg said at the time that he lived on his yacht and in rented apartments in New York and Beverly Hills.
© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.
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