A high rolling poker player who masterminded a property fraud totalling more than three quarters of a billion pounds has been ordered to repay just £3.25m.
Achilleas Kallakis, 46, teamed up with ‘prolific forger’ Alexander Williams, also 46, to con the Allied Irish Bank and the Bank of Scotland on a vast scale.
The pair operated out of a Mayfair office as the Pacific Group of Companies and duped lenders into advancing loans totalling £766m on the back of forged or false documents.
They amassed a portfolio of 16 properties across the UK and an ex-passenger ferry they planned to transform into a super yacht using the banks money.
Kallakis was jailed for seven years while Williams was locked up for five years in January 2013 following a four-month trial at Southwark Crown Court.
The pair were convicted of two counts of conspiracy to defraud banks by applying for loans on high value commercial property.
Among the buildings were the headquarters of the Daily Telegraph in Buckingham Palace Road, bought for £225m, and Lunar House, the Home Office’s asylum processing centre in Croydon, bought from Vincent and Robert Tchenguiz for £100m.
They also bought the 23-storey Market Towers in Vauxhall, from Simon and David Reuben for a reported £75m.
Following a confiscation hearing ‘prime mover’ Kallakis was ordered to pay back £3.25m within six months or face a default sentence of seven extra years.
Williams must pay just £477,474.25 within six years or face another three years in prison.
Mark Thompson, head of the Serious Fraud Office’s proceeds of crime division, said: “The SFO is committed to ensuring that fraudsters do not retain the benefit of their crimes.
“Following a lengthy and challenging confiscation investigation by the Proceeds of Crime Division, the court has made a substantial order against Kallakis.
“We will take steps to make sure the order is satisfied within the period set by the court but if he does not pay, he faces a further lengthy term of imprisonment.”
Kallakis orchestrated the fraud using his accumulated wealth and knowledge of the property market and Williams supported him by producing the necessary documents.
Both men were disqualified form acting as company directors for six years.
Kallakis, the nephew of Greek shipping magnate Pantelis ‘Lou’ Kollakis, said he wanted to turn a property worth £120m off Pall Mall into the world’s most expensive penthouse.
Nicknamed ‘The Don’ after winning $1m in a poker game, he blew millions of pounds on an extravagant lifestyle.
Father-of-four Kallakis, who called himself ‘his excellency’ and claimed to be a San Marino ambassador, bought a private jet for £27m, a helicopter for £5.2m, a luxury yacht moored in Monaco harbour and a collection of high value art works.
He owned a fleet of chauffeur driven Bentleys, a villa in Mykonos and property in Brompton Square, Chelsea, and Monaco, where he is said to have been a member of Prince Albert’s charitable foundation.
Kallakis and Williams used forged documents including bogus guarantees from Hong Kong based property developer SHKP and sham letters attesting to their wealth to rip off the banks.
The fake guarantees, said to cover the rental income from the buildings, led to increased valuations and generated a £77m surplus.
A further £114m put up by AIB and due to be paid in in reverse premiums - incentives for SHKP - was also plundered by Kallakis and Williams.
When the scam collapsed the banks lost a total of nearly £60m.
Kallakis and Williams were convicted in 1995 of selling bogus titles to wealthy Americans including current US congressman for the Louisiana 7th District, Charles Boustany.
Their victims were attracted by the ultimate step in upward mobility and believed they would receive priority on the Queen’s social list.
Police then tracked the pair, who travelled by Concorde, by their BA Airmiles. They were fined and sentenced to 160 hours of community service.
Both Kallakis and Williams changed their names after the peerage fraud - Kallakis was formerly known as Stefanos Kollakis, while Alexander was previously called Martin Lewis.
Williams had also been convicted in February 1993 of using the names of dead people to obtain British passports.
Prosecutor Victor Temple QC said the two men, with Swiss lawyer Michael Becker - who did not appear before the court - targeted AIB and the Bank of Scotland in a ‘large scale financial fraud’.
He said they had persuaded AIB by ‘dishonest means, which included the production of forged documents’ to advance monies in respect of the purchase the 16 properties between 2003 and 2008
“In all cases the money, some £740m in total, was advanced by AIB to companies directly or indirectly under the defendants’ control”, he said.
He added that the ultimate loss to AIB was in excess of £56m.
Kallakis and Williams duped the Bank of Scotland into parting with millions in 2007 for the proposed conversion of an ex-passenger ferry into a luxury yacht.
Kallakis claimed he had run a ‘genuine business’ and had never misled the banks.
He blasted AIB, branding the bank ‘greedy rats’ and claiming its forced sale of his property portfolio to Stephen Vernon’s Green Property group a ploy to steal his assets.
Kallakis, of Chelsea, and Williams of Fulham, were convicted of two counts of conspiracy to defraud in January 2013.
