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Elias Elia. Remember him?

In the depths of a cold winter, he was the .

And as £34m of that was owed to FlyGlobespan and its parent company, for which E-Clear provided credit and debit card transaction services, it was a compelling explanation for why Scotland's biggest airline - at that time - was grounded permanently, costing more than 600 jobs and stranding thousands overseas.

It now seems E-Clear is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

It's not confirming that, but it has gone from saying it's making informal inquiries, some months ago, to saying now that it can't confirm or deny anything.

Others are reporting that E-Clear's administrators are helping the SFO with their inquiries.

So are we any clearer about Mr Elias's account of his accounts? He's proved elusive.

But persistent ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ colleagues at Radio 4's Face the Facts programme have got him to talk - sort of.

He's disputing the administrators' account of what happened to tens of millions of pounds withheld by his firm.

He says suggestions he used money due to clients, including FlyGlobespan, to cover debts in his own business are "absolutely not correct".

But, frustratingly, he refused to explain why.

This is after four months of being asked to do an interview, and repeatedly saying he would do one.... but then failing to commit to a date and time.

He sent a statement in which he claimed FlyGlobespan's collapse was not due to E-Clear and would have happened anyway.

But it didn't answer key questions about E-Clear's finances.

So he was called out of the blue and questions put to him.

He wouldn't say much - but what he did say is at odds with what we've been told so far.

E-Clear's service to Globespan, and to other low fare airlines, was in processing customers' electronic payments and passing it on to the airline, minus commission.

But towards the end of 2008 it started holding money back and clients started to complain that their payments were not arriving as smoothly as before.

The accountants appointed to act as E-Clear's administrators have provided an explanation.

Two of E-Clear's other clients, the Scottish-based airline, Zoom, and the package holiday group, XL, had failed in 2008 blaming high fuel prices.

In a report sent to creditors, the accountants, BDO, stated that E-Clear became liable for £57m of refunds for holidays which had been paid for in advance but not taken:
"As the Company did not hold significant retention monies, it had insufficient resources to meet these liabilities other than by utilising receipts in respect of other solvent merchants".

So in other words, E-Clear started using payments coming in from its remaining clients to pay back credit card companies who had refunded consumers.

Yet when 'Face the Facts' spoke to Mr Elia, he said that is not what happened at all.

So what had happened? He wouldn't elaborate.

Neither did he explain why - as discovered in February - money from E-Clear had been loaned to another of his business interests, Allbury Travel Group Ltd.

It ceased trading when, in December 2009 and after Globespan's collapse, it suddenly lost the financial support previously provided by a parent company belonging to Elias Elia.

While there are travel trade reports of Mr Elia pursuing E-Clear's administrators for losses he himself incurred in his own companies' collapse, perhaps the Serious Fraud Office will be luckier in getting straight answers from him.

You can hear the results of the latest Face the Facts investigation onYou & Yours on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 4. The programme is available on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer until Friday 13 June.