North Carolina investment firm founder, Greg Lindberg, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for siphoning more than $2bn in reserves backing insurance policies and using the proceeds to fund jets, mansions and a 214-foot yacht.
According to Bloomberg, claiming he’d be the next Warren Buffett, Lindberg sought to acquire insurance companies with long-term liabilities that he would place in assets affiliated with his investment firm, Global Growth, the Government said. But he went to “unlawful extremes” by investing too much, flouting asset rules and deceiving regulators and third parties about the transactions, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“Lindberg’s scheme depended on the illusion — which he fraudulently promoted — that he operated separate insurance companies with separate assets for the benefit of separate policyholders,” prosecutors wrote. “In reality, Lindberg treated all his companies, insurance or not, as one big pool of money that belonged to him to use as he pleased.”
US district judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. sentenced Lindberg at a hearing in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina. That prison term was less than the 14.5 years sought by prosecutors. His defence lawyers had asked for the 40 months he’s already served in prison.
“As a result of Lindberg’s conduct, his insurance companies, third-party entities and policyholders suffered substantial financial hardship, and multiple of his insurance companies have been placed in rehabilitation and liquidation,” the Justice Department said in its statement. “To date, thousands of individual policyholders and other victims are collectively still owed more than $1bn.”
