UK agency looks to seize mortgage fraudster’s donation to Chelsea private school
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is seeking to seize a £92,500 donation given by a Mayfair property magnate who was convicted of fraud to his daughter’s private school.
The fraud investigator is seeking permission from a London court to confiscate the money given to his daughter’s school by mortgage fraudster Achilleas Kallakis.
The conman was dubbed Britain’s most successful confidence trickster after fooling bankers into lending him millions in the UK’s largest ever mortgage fraud.
Kallakis was previously convicted in 2013 of using fraudulently obtained loans to build a £740m property empire.
The SFO is now seeking to recover a further £92,500 donation given to a private school in Sloane Square, which saw a hall named after the Kallakis family.
The new hall in the Chelsea school, which counts Cara Delevigne as one of its former students, was later renamed after the conman was convicted of fraud in 2013.
The UK fraud agency’s bid comes after Kallakis’ son, Michaelis, sued the school for breach of contract after it took down a plaque commemorating the Kallakis family.
The school declined to comment when approached by Morning Wire
Kallakis and his co-conspirator, Alexander Williams, used the loans from the banks to buy 16 London properties including The Daily Telegraph’s £225m headquarters in Victoria.
The old university friends operated out of an office in Mayfair while using forged documents to purchase a £75m tower in Vauxhall and a Home Office building in Croydon.
In carrying out their fraud, the duo managed to conceal previous convictions for selling fake peerages to Americans in the 1990s.
Kallakis used the proceeds of his crimes to bankroll a luxury lifestyle that saw him maintain a fleet of chauffeur driven Bentleys, a yacht in Monaco, and his own private plane.
The conman was, however, sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2013 and told to pay back £3.25m after the fraud was uncovered in 2008.