Greg Lindberg, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC and owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group, has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for orchestrating one of the largest insurance frauds in US history – a scheme that siphoned more than $2 billion from insurance reserves and left thousands of policyholders without the coverage they were promised.
The sentence was handed down Tuesday by US District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina. It fell between the roughly four years Lindberg's defence sought and the more than 14 years prosecutors had requested.
Lindberg, 56, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and was separately convicted by a federal jury in May 2024 of conspiring to bribe the elected North Carolina insurance commissioner.
According to court documents and the Department of Justice, Lindberg ran the fraud from at least 2016 through 2019, using a web of affiliated companies to move insurance funds in ways that deceived regulators, ratings agencies and policyholders alike.
By acquiring insurance companies with long-term liabilities, Lindberg channelled their reserves – money held in trust to pay future claims – into loans and securities issued by his own affiliated entities. He then "forgave" more than $125 million of those loans to himself, effectively treating policyholder-backed capital as personal income.
"Lindberg treated all his companies, insurance or not, as one big pool of money that belonged to him to use as he pleased," federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.
The proceeds funded a lifestyle prosecutors described as extravagant — private jets, multiple mansions and a 200-foot luxury yacht.
As regulators began scrutinising his operations, Lindberg moved to neutralise the oversight. Between April 2017 and August 2018, he and others funnelled millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other benefits to North Carolina's insurance commissioner, with the explicit goal of having a senior deputy commissioner removed. That official had been responsible for overseeing the periodic examination of Lindberg's insurance group.
The bribery scheme ultimately became its own criminal exposure. Lindberg was first convicted of the bribery scheme in 2020, though that conviction was later overturned on appeal. A second jury convicted him again in 2024.
The financial damage from the fraud has been substantial and, for many victims, ongoing. Multiple insurance companies controlled by Lindberg have been placed in rehabilitation or liquidation. Thousands of individual policyholders and other victims are collectively still owed more than $1 billion.
Prosecutors painted a stark picture of the harm caused – victims experiencing sleepless nights, new depression diagnoses, a loss of trust in financial institutions, and in some cases being forced to return to work in their later years after losing savings they had relied upon.
A special master appointed by the court has recommended that Lindberg be ordered to pay $1.63 billion in restitution. Separate hearings on the restitution amount are still to be scheduled.
Lindberg has said he expects to repay the full amount owed and noted that hundreds of millions of dollars have already been directed toward victim restitution, including through the sale of one of his companies for net proceeds of approximately $349 million.
The cases were investigated by the FBI's Charlotte Field Office and prosecuted by the Justice Department's Criminal Division and the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina.
