By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Two businessmen have been foundguilty in London of defrauding banks of hundreds of millions ofpounds to fund a lavish lifestyle and build a commercialproperty empire, in their second conviction for deception andforgery in 18 years.
London-based Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Williams, bothaged 44, persuaded Allied Irish Banks to lend them 740million pounds ($1.2 billion) by using forged documents and fakeproperty guarantees between 2003 and 2008, the Serious FraudOffice (SFO) said on Wednesday.
The loans enabled Kallakis to build a 16-property portfolio.
The fraud, which included an agreement from HBOS, now partof Lloyds, included a multi-million euro loan Kallakissaid was to convert a passenger ferry into a super-yacht. Aroundsix million euros of that loan was advanced.
A third person, Swiss lawyer Michael Becker, was director ofcompanies involved in the loan agreements and was closelyinvolved in the fraud, the SFO said in a statement. He was notcharged as he lives abroad and is outside the SFO'sjurisdiction.
The jury, which returned unanimous verdicts on two counts ofconspiracy to defraud, were told Kallakis maintained a fleet ofchauffeur driven Bentleys, a private jet, a private helicopter,a luxury yacht moored in Monaco and high value art.
Kallakis and Williams, an expert forger, have been remandedin custody awaiting sentencing on Thursday.
The two men, who changed their names after being convictedin 1995 of selling bogus honorary titles mainly to Americans,operated out of an office in London's plush Mayfair district asthe Pacific Group of Companies.
They pretended a respected Hong Kong company, Sun Hung KaiProperties (SHKP), was guaranteeing long-term, toprents for commercial properties. This inflated the price of theproperties to 60 million pounds above their cost, the SFO said.
They also provided false guarantees from a company calledOregon Finance Corp, which Kallakis said was a billion-dollarship-owner belonging to his family trust. Oregon Finance,however, had millions of pounds of liabilities and no assets.
During 2007 and 2008, Kallakis agreed a 29 million euro HBOSloan for the boat conversion. He provided the bank withdocuments that included a death certificate of his mother inwhich her surname was altered to hide Kallakis's name change.
But by August 2008, AIB discovered that Kallakis had aprevious fraud conviction in the name of Stefanos Kollakis. Theycontacted Hong Kong's SHKP, which confirmed they had not offeredKallakis any rent guarantees.
A police investigation began in January 2009 and the menwere charged in February 2010.