How Bluepoint and Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund Turned Workers’ Savings Into Loot for Finance Capital

The Blueprint: How Two Men in Wisconsin Built a $135 Million Lie

Michael G. Hull co-founded Bluepoint Investment Counsel in June 2012, shortly after being terminated by another investment advisory firm. Within a year, he had launched a series of private investment funds under the Greenpoint brand. The flagship product — Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund — would go on to raise $52.783 million (more than most Americans will earn in multiple lifetimes of work) from 129 investors in 10 states between April 2014 and June 2019.

Hull ran the investor-facing side of the operation. Christopher J. Nohl handled the operations and investments. Together, through their respective shell companies — Greenpoint Asset Management II and Chrysalis Financial — they controlled every dollar that came in and every figure that went out to investors. They told investors the fund was an “income” fund generating “strong, stable” cash flow from assets that “produced return through interest payments, trading profits, or operational cash flow.”

The reality was the polar opposite. As of June 2018, 52% of the fund’s claimed value was its gem and mineral collection, and 46% was tied up in a company called Amiran Technologies — which was already defunct and worthless. Neither asset generated meaningful income. Neither was easily sold. And 95% of the claimed $93 million in gains were “unrealized” — meaning they existed only on paper, assigned by appraisers whom Nohl himself pressured, bribed, or in one case, whose signature he tried to obtain through a fake contract.

The Numbers They Bragged About Were Fabricated

Hull and Nohl advertised spectacular returns to investors: 65.68% return in 2014, “just in excess of 50%” in 2015, 25.48% in 2016, and 16.11% in the first half of 2018. These numbers were generated not by actual trading profits, but by inflating the appraised value of gems and rocks — and by valuing their stake in a dying company at $46 million while that company’s primary subsidiary was already in default on its loans.

The SEC found that Nohl and Hull violated the fund’s own operating agreement repeatedly, using appraised values instead of purchase prices as required. On 21 of 22 minerals appraised in 2014 alone, the appraisals came in higher than what the fund actually paid — generating $4.4 million in fake unrealized gains and a reported return of 111.9% through numbers that were not real. The fund’s auditors were never told the full truth about how appraisals were conducted.

By the time the SEC filed its original complaint in September 2019, the fund’s most recent financial statements were over a year old. In October 2019, the fund filed for bankruptcy. The investors were left holding accounts tied to gems, rocks, a dead company, and promises that were never meant to be kept.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What This Did to Real People

The investors in Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund were not venture capitalists chasing high-risk bets with money they could afford to lose. The SEC complaint makes clear that Hull specifically targeted people who were most vulnerable: individuals on fixed incomes, older adults, and people for whom “risky illiquid investments were not appropriate.” Hull made these pitches personally, one-on-one, through his role as their registered investment adviser — a person legally and morally obligated to put their interests first. Instead, he put his own fees first.

Hull recommended that the majority of Bluepoint’s individual clients invest all of the assets Bluepoint managed into the Greenpoint Funds. Every dollar. He told them the investments were safe. He told them the returns were real. He told them they could take their money out whenever they needed it. All three of those statements were lies. When investors tried to redeem their investments, those requests were “delayed or unfulfilled” — and when some investors did manage to get their money back, it came directly from new investors being pulled into the same scheme. That is the textbook definition of a Ponzi structure.

Hull also talked the board of directors of a small public library into investing. This was community money. Money meant for books, for public programs, for the people in that town who needed a place to learn and connect. Hull directed that money into a fund stuffed with rocks and a dead company. The library board members were not finance professionals; they were community volunteers trusting a licensed adviser who had a legal duty not to deceive them. He deceived them anyway.

For five years — from 2014 through 2019 — investors received quarterly statements showing extraordinary returns. They watched their account values climb. Some may have made plans around those numbers: retirement dates, home purchases, college funds for their kids. None of those gains were real. The money they thought they had was fictional, generated by an appraiser who “look[ed] at a specimen for a few seconds and write[s] down a value” while Nohl stood over his shoulder demanding higher numbers. The 95% of reported gains that were “unrealized” were, in the words of the SEC complaint, “largely fictitious.”

Meanwhile, Hull used investor funds to buy himself a piano that went directly to his home, and a sapphire that was set into jewelry for his wife. Nohl used investor money to buy gems for his own business, to pay back personal debts through a convoluted arrangement involving a diamond engagement ring purchase and a $25,000 payment routed through the fund. The fund’s own accountant was being overcharged by $100,000 annually — the difference pocketed by Hull and Nohl through yet another entity they owned. None of this was disclosed to the people whose savings were fueling it.

When investors asked for their money back, Hull and Nohl paid themselves first. Every quarter, regardless of how little cash the fund actually had, management fees went out the door to their own entities. The complaint records quarter after quarter of financial statements showing $0 in realized gains — meaning no actual income — while management fees of $400,000 to $500,000 per quarter continued to flow. The fund was running on fumes and new investor money. The people at the bottom of that chain, the retirees and library boards and fixed-income families, were the ones left holding nothing.

Follow the Money: $13.71 Million Extracted While Investors Got Nothing

The 30% Ownership Trick Nobody Told You About

Hull and Nohl structured the fund with two classes of shares. Investors received “Unit A” shares. Hull’s and Nohl’s management entities received “Unit B” shares — representing a permanent 30% ownership stake in the entire fund, despite contributing almost no capital. Every time a new investor put money in, Unit B shares were simultaneously issued to Hull and Nohl’s entities to maintain that 30-to-70 ratio. As of June 30, 2018, the combined value of those Unit B accounts was reported at $30.0 million (roughly the cost of building 300 affordable housing units).

This means that on top of the management fees, the incentive fees, the accounting overcharges, the hidden loans, and the undisclosed transactions, Hull and Nohl held a permanent 30% cut of every dollar of reported gains — gains they themselves were fabricating through manipulated appraisals. The machinery of extraction was total and interlocking. Every layer of the scheme fed every other layer.

Legal Receipts: Straight From the Government’s Complaint

On How Hull Sold This to Ordinary People

“Hull falsely stated that investments in Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund (1) were safe, (2) would generate high returns, and (3) could be withdrawn as needed. These were material misrepresentations and omissions by Hull and Bluepoint because the investments were not safe and the reported returns were inflated. Furthermore, the investors’ funds could not be withdrawn as needed. Redemption requests by investors have been delayed or unfulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, it is when funds are received from new investors.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 42

On the Appraiser Who Decided Prices in Seconds

“Appraiser Number 1’s appraisal process was to look at a specimen for a few seconds and write down a value. Nohl knew this was Appraiser Number 1’s process. Nohl knew the appraisal process for the Fund’s minerals was subjective, not the objective process he represented to the Fund’s investors and auditors.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 199

On the Forged Contract

“Nohl created a false contract with Dealer Number 1. The false contract is the same as the actual contract with Dealer Number 1, but has handwritten on it ‘time is not of the essence and all payments are best efforts.’ The false contract also has a signature on it. Dealer Number 1 did not sign the false contract.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 65

On the 348% Interest Rate Loan Nohl Charged His Own Fund

“On December 7, 2016, Nohl loaned Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund $105,000. The Fund repaid the loan on December 22, 2016. The Fund paid Nohl interest of $15,000 for this 15-day loan to the Fund he co-manages. The effective annual percentage rate on this loan was 348%. Hull signed the loan agreement as the manager of Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund. Hull, Nohl, Chrysalis, and Greenpoint Management II did not disclose this loan, its terms, amount, and interest rate to the investors or the Fund’s auditor.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 167

On Hull Buying Himself a Piano and His Wife a Gemstone With Investor Money

“On September 15, 2014, an entity co-owned by Hull acquired a piano from Greenpoint Tactical Income Fund for $58,000. On September 22, 2014, an entity co-owned by Hull purchased a sapphire from GP Rare Earth for $58,000. The piano went to Hull’s residence. The sapphire was put into jewelry that Hull’s wife wears. Hull, Nohl, Chrysalis, and Greenpoint Management II did not disclose these transactions to the investors or the Fund’s auditor.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 188

On the Appraiser Who Held His Signature Hostage for Cash

“On or about June 13, 2016, Appraiser Number 2 sent a Facebook message to Nohl stating, ‘I know we can figure out a trade on the remaining balance of the collection you got from me . . . and I can sign those appraisals finally.’ Later that same day, Nohl gave Appraiser Number 2 a check for $125,000 and insisted Appraiser Number 2 conduct more appraisals of the Fund’s minerals. The same day that he received the check, Appraiser Number 2 appraised ten of the Fund’s mineral specimens.” — SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 208

They Charged Their Own Fund Loan Rates That Would Make a Payday Lender Blush

When the fund ran out of cash — which it did repeatedly, because Hull and Nohl paid themselves first — they loaned it money from their own pockets and charged the fund interest rates ranging from 11% to 348% annually. Not one of these loans was disclosed to investors or to the auditor. Hull was simultaneously paying the fund back at 14% annual interest on a personal loan he had taken from it — while charging the fund 76% on a loan he made to it in the same period.

Source: SEC First Amended Complaint, Paragraph 173. None of these loans were disclosed to investors or auditors.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric: What $13.71 Million in Fees Really Means

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Gets Hurt When Finance Eats the Public

Economic Inequality: The Rich Extracted From Everyone Else

The Greenpoint scheme is a precise, small-scale model of how financial inequality compounds itself. Hull and Nohl — the people at the top of the structure — received management fees, incentive fees, Unit B ownership stakes, undisclosed loan interest, accounting overcharges, and personal purchases of assets at fund expense. The people at the bottom — retirees, fixed-income seniors, a small-town library board — received quarterly statements full of numbers that did not exist, and were told they could not withdraw their actual money.

Hull’s Bluepoint advisory firm charged clients 1% of assets under management annually to recommend they put everything into the Greenpoint fund, which then charged another 2% per year in management fees plus 30% of all profits (including unrealized, fictitious ones). Every layer of this structure transferred wealth upward, from ordinary savers who trusted a licensed professional to two men who were simultaneously running their own competing gem businesses and charging their own fund loan rates of up to 348%. The machinery was designed to extract, not to grow.

The fund’s total reported assets of $135.3 million (enough to provide down payments on modest homes for over 2,700 first-time buyers) were built on a cost basis of only $40.1 million. The $95 million difference was fictional. Investors believed in it. They made plans around it. And when those plans collided with reality — when they tried to exit, when the fund went bankrupt — the fictional $95 million vanished, along with over a decade of trust.

Public Health: The Invisible Harm of Financial Trauma

The source material does not document physical illness outcomes among investors. But the documented profile of the victim population — fixed-income seniors, older individuals for whom “risky illiquid investments were not appropriate,” people who handed over their “entire life savings” — makes the public health dimension of this fraud inescapable. Financial insecurity in retirement is one of the documented drivers of depression, anxiety, delayed medical care, and premature mortality among older Americans. When an investment adviser you trusted absorbs your entire savings into a fraudulent fund and then tells you there is no cash to return it, the damage to your wellbeing is measurable, sustained, and real.

The small public library Hull targeted represents another dimension. Libraries are public health infrastructure. They serve as warming centers, resource hubs, social connection points, and safe spaces for people experiencing poverty, homelessness, and mental health challenges. Diverting a library’s investment capital into a fraudulent fund risks the institution’s ability to fund those functions. Every dollar the library may have lost is a dollar that did not buy books, extend hours, or staff programs for the most vulnerable people in that community.

The Regulatory Gap: Who Was Watching?

Bluepoint was registered with the SEC as an investment adviser from June 2012 through March 2019 — the entire run of the fraud. During that period, the SEC complaint describes Hull making blanket recommendations to all of Bluepoint’s 162 client accounts to invest in the Greenpoint Funds, “without regard for each individual investor’s needs and circumstances.” Bluepoint’s most recent Form ADV reported $124.5 million in assets under management (equivalent to the entire annual budget of a mid-sized American city’s public health department). That fiduciary relationship — and the legal duties that come with it — were violated for years before regulatory action arrived.

The fund’s financial statements for 2017 and 2018 were never audited. The most recent statements at the time of the SEC’s original filing were over a year old. Management elected, repeatedly, to “omit substantially all of the disclosures” required by generally accepted accounting principles. These are not technical oversights. They are deliberate choices to keep investors in the dark while the extraction continued.