AIB lent £98m to ‘fraudster’ on back of dodgy guarantee

Allied Irish Bank lent £98m (€123.5m) to an alleged fraudster on the back of dodgy guarantees from a top Chinese property firm, a London court heard yesterday.

AIB lent Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Williams £98m to buy an office block in Croydon, south London, because of guarantees supposedly obtained from Sun Hung Kai Properties [SHKP], the court was told.

The bank’s non-executive chairman Dermot Gleeson said the SHKP guarantees, which are alleged to be fake, were the “most notable” factor when it came to authorising the £98m loan to buy Apollo and Lunar House, whose tenants include the Home Office.