A business tycoon faces a lengthy jail sentence after he was today convicted of swindling AIB out of £740 million.

Achilleas Kallakis (44) was found guilty of the fraud after a jury agreed that he had conned the bank out of the cash using fake property guarantees.

The financier, who rubbed shoulders with the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Albert of Monaco and Margaret Thatcher, used some of the cash to buy a luxury villa in Mykonos, private jet, helicopter a chauffeur-driven Bentley and even a super yacht.

Today a jury of six men and six women took just over two days to unanimously convict Kallakis and his co-defendant Alexander Williams, also 44, after a trial lasting four months.

Both men were convicted of two charges of conspiracy to defraud spanning from August 2003 to November 2008.

Jurors agreed with the prosecution's claims that the pair had forged a host of fake documents and lied about Kallakis' wealth in order to con AIB, which was bailed out by the Irish government in September 2008 at the as their fraud was uncovered.

The pair, who were said to have been helped by a Swiss-based lawyer called Michael Becker were also convicted of using a similar scam against Bank of Scotland in order to take out a €26 million loan to convert a ferry into a super yacht.

Kallakis and Williams were convicted of faking deeds of guarantee purportedly from Hong Kong-based estate agent Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP).

These tricked AIB into lending them the money to buy 16 prestigious British properties, including the headquarters of the Daily Telegraph on Buckingham Palace Road.

Agencies