Greg Lindberg, 56, of Tampa, Florida, was sentenced to a combined 12 years in prison for orchestrating a multibillion-dollar insurance fraud conspiracy and a separate bribery scheme that bankrupted multiple insurance companies and left policyholders and other victims collectively owed more than $1 billion, the Justice Department announced.
Lindberg, founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC and owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group, conspired with others from at least 2016 through at least 2019 to defraud insurance companies, third parties and hundreds of thousands of insurance policyholders, according to court documents. He and his co-conspirators deceived the North Carolina Department of Insurance and other regulators, evaded consumer protection requirements and concealed the true financial condition of his companies while improperly using insurance company funds for personal benefit.
Prosecutors said Lindberg directed companies he controlled in North Carolina, Bermuda, Malta and elsewhere to invest more than $2 billion in loans and securities with his own affiliated entities and laundered the proceeds of the scheme. Among the ways he personally profited, according to the Justice Department, was by “forgiving” more than $125 million in loans he owed to the insurance companies he controlled. Lindberg used the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle that included private jets, mansions and a 200-foot luxury yacht.
To carry out the conspiracies, Lindberg and others engaged in circular transactions among his network of entities using insurance company funds while misleading regulators, ratings agencies, insurance companies and policyholders about the transactions, prosecutors said.
As the fraud began to unravel, Lindberg launched a parallel bribery scheme between April 2017 and August 2018, prosecutors said. He and others funneled millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other items of value to the North Carolina insurance commissioner in exchange for the removal of a senior deputy commissioner responsible for overseeing the regulation and examination of Global Bankers Insurance Group.
The financial fallout from Lindberg’s conduct has been severe. Multiple insurance companies he controlled have been placed in rehabilitation and liquidation, and thousands of individual policyholders and other victims are collectively still owed more than $1 billion, the Justice Department said. A special master has been appointed to assist with restitution, and a separate restitution hearing will be scheduled.
In November 2024, Lindberg pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States and conspiracy to commit money laundering. A federal jury had previously convicted him in May 2024 on charges of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery involving programs receiving federal funds.
The FBI Charlotte Field Office investigated both cases. The fraud case was prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina, while the bribery prosecution was handled alongside the department’s Public Integrity Section.
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