Global Tel Link

Owned by Michael Samaniego and Herlinda Samaniego. In 2020, GTL delivered 4.1 billion call minutes to incarcerated individuals and their families. In 2019, Deb Alderson was chief executive officer (CEO), Jeffrey Haidinger was president and chief operating officer (COO), Steve Yow was chief financial officer (CFO), Anthony R. Bambocci was chief marketing officer and executive vice president, and Matthew Caesar was senior vice president of engineering and development. Board members included Hugh D. Evans and Ramzi M. Musallam from Veritas Capital and Jeffrey C. Weber from DC Capital Partners, LLC. GTL was founded in 1980 in Mobile, Alabama, under the name Global Telcoin, Inc. The company changed its name in 1999 to Global Tel*Link Corporation. Private-equity firms Veritas Capital and Goldman Sachs purchased GTL from Gores Equity LLC for $345 million. In October 2011, GTL was sold for $1 billion to Michael Samaniego and Herlinda Samaniego. GTL, along with other similar entities such as Securus Technologies and the private-equity firms that own them, such as Veritas Capital, have been criticized by advocacy groups, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg Business, and some lawmakers, for charging overly high prices in their monopoly in communication with incarcerated individuals.