Former GM Manager Pleads Guilty In Aluminum Fraud

MIKE ROBINSON

CHICAGO (AP) — A former General Motors manager has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion, admitting he took $6.5 million in kickbacks in the sale of hundreds of millions of pounds of aluminum worth an estimated $1 billion.

Daniel Bealko, 62, formerly of Clarkston, Mich., appeared before U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras last Thursday to enter his plea, one day after he returned from Liechtenstein following an extradition proceeding.

He was arrested last year in Liechtenstein, where he had been living as fugitive. Before that, he was believed to have been living in St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.

Prosecutors said Bealko, GM's former global commodity manager for lightweight metals, agreed to forfeit $6.5 million and assist in moving back to the U.S. foreign assets including $3.3 million in a Liechtenstein bank.

Bealko admitted that he took the $6.5 million to steer GM's sale of the aluminum to Fuci Metals USA, owned by Anthony Demetrius Brown, a metals dealer. Brown already has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the case.