Two found guilty over £750m fraud

Two businessmen, Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Martin Williams, have been found guilty for defrauding banks, including the Bank of Scotland, of a more than £750 million through deception and forgery.

Kallakis and Williams will be sentenced on 17 January at Southwark Crown Court.

From 2003 to 2008 the two London-based men conspired to defraud Allied Irish Banks by using false or forged documents to obtain substantial loans to finance the purchase a property portfolio. This allowed Kallakis to acquire 16 properties that worth £740 million.

Between 2007 and 2008 Bank of Scotland agreed to a loan of £24 million to Kallakis, which he claimed was for the conversion of a former passenger ferry into a super-yacht for his personal use.

It used a guarantee from Oregon Finance Corporation, which was also based on forged or false letters, and a number of forged documents on Kallakis' family trust. By the time the bank became suspicious only £4.7 million has been advanced.

A third person, Michael Becker, is also alleged to have conspired with the defendants for being closely involved in the fraud and was director of companies presented to the banks in the loan agreements as 'borrowing companies'.  He is a Swiss national who has not been charged due to his absence from this jurisdiction.