Men sentenced for defrauding banks

Two businessmen were convicted last week of conspiring to defraud banks, principally Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and the Bank of Scotland, of millions of pounds and euros.

Achilleas Michaelis Kallakis (44) and Alexander Martin Williams (44) were sentenced to seven years' and five years' imprisonment respectively and disqualified from acting as company directors for six years.

The defendants, from London, conspired over a five-year period (2003-2008) to defraud AIB by using forged or false documents or claims in order to obtain around £740 million in loans to finance the purchase of what was mostly a commercial property portfolio.

The complex transactions were structured in such a way that the bank loans exceeded the purchase price of the properties - by an estimated £60 million.

During 2007 and 2008, in another fraud following similar lines to the property loans fraud, the Bank of Scotland agreed a loan of €29 million in order, claimed Kallakis, to finance the conversion of a former passenger ferry into a super-yacht for his personal use. By the time suspicions were raised, the bank had advanced only a proportion of the loan, i.e. €5.7 million.

During the trial the jury were told that Kallakis used the proceeds of his fraud to fund the lifestyle of the super-rich, including a fleet of chauffer driven Bentleys, a private plane, a private helicopter, a luxury yacht moored in Monaco harbour and a collection of high value art works.

"This was an audacious, persistent fraud that enabled these defendants, Mr Kallakis in particular, to lead the lifestyle of the super-rich,” said Ronan Duff, case manager at the Serious Fraud Office. “The SFO have been equally persistent in investigating this elaborate scam and in ensuring that justice has been delivered".