A bizarre request has been made by the AI Bank and Bank of Scotland, when they required that Mr. Achilleas Kallakis to return only £3 million of over £740 million reported to be stolen in a number of property fraudulence.
Mr. Kallakis is a famous professional poker player known for participating in ‘The Poker Den’ show. He is required to give back this little portion of the overall sum in a six-month period.
If not, his current sentence of seven years will be prolonged further.
The ‘Business Partnership’ of Fraud and Mischief
The fraudulent actions of Mr Kallakis and his so-called ‘business partner’ Alexander Williams were first reported in 2010, when multiple accusations of fraud and forgery were filed against them.
There were also reports for money laundering, cheating of money transfers as well as fake representation. All those and more reports were filed after the two accomplices managed to somehow make Bank of Scotland and Allied Irish Bank to part ways with more than £750 million of loans. The money they acquired were used to take ownership of an impressive amount of luxurious goods and real estate.
The Stolen Properties
It is said that Kallakis and Williams conspired against the banks for five years (from 2003 to 2008) and somehow managed to attain an overall of sixteen properties. One of them was the Daily Telegraph main office in London, which is estimated to cost around £225 million. Other extremely expensive items who made the list were a private jet, a number of Bentley cars, a helicopter, a gigantic yacht said to be docked somewhere in Monte Carlo and a £100 million property in Croydon.
Who is Achilleas Kallakis?
Achilleas Kallakis has four children and is 46 years old. His extravagant persona likes to be called ‘his excellency’ and is known to be one of the major figures in the professional poker. He was paid around £100,000 for joining the TV poker show ‘The Poker Den’ in 2005.
The same year he managed to get third place at the Pacific Poker Open organized by 888.com, earning $100,000 where he sat on the finalists table with renowned names such as Julian Gardner and Barry Hearn. The winner of the event was Ian Frazer.
The two accomplices were arrested in 2009 and the lawsuit continued for four years. They were sentenced in 2013 and sent to jail. Kallakis was given a seven year sentence in prison, William was sentenced for five.
The odd part of the whole story is that Kallakis was required to only give back £3 million of all the money and properties he is proven to have stolen. Williams was required to return an even smaller amount – less than £500,000. He was also convicted of having fake British ID’s using the names of dead British citizens.
Both are required to return the given sums in a period of six months or their jail sentences will be prolonged. It is not yet clear whether Kallakis and Williams will lose all of the properties they managed to acquire during the five years during which they managed to cheat the British banks in a variety of ways.
