Poker ‘Don’ Sentenced to 7 Years in $1.2 Billion Fraud Case

Greek businessman Achilleas Kallakis, known as “The Don” on the international poker circuit, was sentenced to seven years in jail by a U.K. judge after being found guilty of defrauding lenders to pay for trophy property, planes, a yacht in Monaco and luxury cars.

The crime amounted to “fraud on a major scale,” Judge Andrew Goymer said at a hearing in London today. Kallakis, 44, and his co-conspirator Alexander M. Williams, also 44, were convicted yesterday of defrauding banks to borrow 740 million pounds ($1.2 billion) and acquire 16 properties including an office building on London’s St. James’s Square.