GL Capital Partners’ former CEO Daniel Thibeault pleads guilty to $15 million fraud tied to loan fund

Daniel Thibeault, former CEO of the asset management firm GL Capital Partners, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges he defrauded fund investors of $15 million, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Thibeault, 41, used money in the GL Beyond Income Fund to make fictitious consumer loans, the SEC said on Monday. He also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for making numerous false statements to the agency’s staff during their investigation of the scheme he began in 2013 or earlier. His plea was entered in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Investors were led by Mr. Thibeault and others to believe that their pooled contributions would be used to make or buy consumer loans, and that they’d earn a return from the interest collected, according to the SEC. Instead, Mr. Thibeault reported “fake loans” as assets of the GL Beyond Income Fund to conceal the misappropriation of at least $15 million, the agency said.

The guilty plea follows the SEC’s January 2015 complaint of securities fraud, and his related arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation the year before.