Officers from the Serious Fraud Squad are investigating an alleged fraud relating to companies led by entrepreneur and gambler Achilleas Kallakis.
The officers yesterday conducted searches at addresses in central London as part of an investigation into the alleged fraud, which surrounds loans provided between 2003 and 2007 by Allied Irish Bank.
It is alleged that `guarantees of certain lease payments on these properties by an investment grade counterparty (a blue chip property company’ were fraudulent.’
This subsequently led to Allied Irish Bank taking a write-down of £56m after it was realized that `over-riding’ leases allegedly taken by the blue chip property company had artificially inflated values and did not exist.
After this AIB took control of and sold the properties.
It has now emerged that the properties involved were allegedly managed by Kallakis’s Pacific Group - and were before Christmas sold to Green Property, as revealed in Property Week. Green Property is in no way involved with the alleged fraud.
Kallakis, who was unavailable for comment, is also a big name at Europe’s top poker tables. His Pacific Group ventured into property in the early part of the decade on behalf of a Swiss Family Trust, buying properties in London’s St James’s Square and Buckingham Palace Road.
At its peak this portfolio was worth more than £1bn, but having fallen sharply in value was transferred to Green with Allied Irish’s debt package intact late last year.
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