A PROPERTY tycoon pretended to be a scion of a Greek shipping dynasty to con Allied Irish Bank into lending him £750 million, a London court heard yesterday.

Achilleas Kallakis (43) claimed he was worth “very much more” than £10 million in order to get brokering firm CLP Structured Finance to introduce him at Allied Irish Bank. He subsequently conned the bank into lending him £740 million (€850 million) to buy a property empire based on lies of grandeur and fake documents, the court was told.

Kallakis and his partner Alexander Williams, also 43, bought 16 landmark properties on the back of the borrowed money but when the business based on forgeries went bust, AIB lost £56 million (€64.3 million).

Both men deny two counts of conspiracy to defraud, 13 counts of forgery, five counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of money laundering and one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception.

Victor Temple QC, prosecuting, said the scam began in 2003 after convicted fraudster Kallakis got an introduction to the bank, which was keen to make its mark on the UK property market.

He told Southwark Crown Court: “Kallakis was holding himself out as the wealthy descendant of a Greek shipping family who was seeking to set himself out in the property business as a second string to his bow”.

Kallakis, the “driving force” behind the fraud with his “backroom man” Williams, succeeded, Mr Temple said. “Between 2003 and 2008 AIB were involved in some 16 transactions involving the two defendants and Michael Becker. In each case the bank provided monies to enable companies, in reality and for all practical purposes controlled by Kallakis, to purchase properties. For the most part the properties were commercial as opposed to residential,” he told the jury.

The bank’s property team was provided with information on the properties involved, their estimated value, how much the loan was to be, the repayment terms, and the nature of the protection for the bank if the repayments were not made.

But unbeknownst to them, the supporting documentation for the company and the guarantees on the rents were faked by computer expert Williams, the jury was told.

Mr Temple added: “The team were totally reliant on truth and accuracy of the info provided by two defendants and Becker”.

When one of their companies based in their Mayfair office, Atlas Management, went bust Williams desperately instructed IT manager Martin Balcombe, to “get rid of the servers” where the separate Madonna file containing all the forged documents were held.

But instead of deleting the servers Mr Balcombe backed up all the documents.

The trial continues.