Pair jailed for conspiring to swindle hundreds of millions from banks

Two fraudsters who conspired to swindle banks of hundreds of millions of pounds have been jailed.

Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Williams, both 44 and from London, tried to defraud AIB out of £740m (€887m) and Bank of Scotland (BoS), as it was known, of €26m between Aug 2003 and Nov 2008.

The offences were carried out over five years and funded property and luxury yacht scams.

Yesterday at Southwark Crown Court Kallakis, the “prime mover” was jailed for seven years and Williams for five years.

Neither reacted as Judge Andrew Goymer delivered the sentences.

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

The pair were convicted yesterday of two counts of conspiring to defraud the banks after a four-month trial.

The men used forged documents as part of their plot to use AIB money to buy properties and BoS cash to convert an ex-passenger ferry into a super yacht.

The loss to AIB was more than £56m, and €5.8m to BoS.

Judge Goymer said he regarded these sums as “paper figures which I treat with some scepticism”.

The judge told Kallakis, a married father-of-four, and Williams, whose wife took their daughter back to the Philippines a few years ago, they were responsible for fraud “on a major scale”.

He told them they both needed each other for the frauds to work.

The duo, who both used various aliases, operated from London business premises in Carlos Place, Mayfair, where Kallakis, a one-time travel agent, masqueraded as a legitimate property tycoon and Williams as a financial consultant.

The borrowing represented £740m for a 16-property portfolio and a €26m loan agreement for the yacht conversion.

A third person, Swiss lawyer and businessman Michael Becker, is also alleged to have conspired with the defendants.

The Serious Fraud Office claimed he was closely involved in the fraud and was director of companies presented to the banks in the loan agreements as “borrowing companies”.

As he is a Swiss national, he has not been charged due to his absence from UK jurisdiction.