Christian Dior joins court case against missing conwoman Melissa Caddick
Luxury design company Christian Dior has joined the court case against missing conwoman Melissa Caddick, saying it has money held “in her name” it wants to return.
Police & Courts
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One of Melissa Caddick’s favourite high-end designers, Christian Dior, has joined the court case against the missing alleged conwoman, at the same time as her husband continues to ask the court to hand him what could be a fortune left in her name.
Caddick, 49, vanished two years ago this week after investigators from the corporate regulator ASIC raided her Dover Heights home and seized her wildly expensive items amid an investigation into allegations she fleeced $23 million from investors.
She has not been seen since November 2020 except for her decomposing foot, which washed up on a beach hundreds of kilometres south of Sydney inside an Asics-brand shoe in February 2021.
This year an inquest into Caddick’s disappearance, and presumed death, has run alongside the Federal Court case launched by ASIC against Caddick.
Photographs of the ASIC raid have shown Chanel jackets, a Gucci handbag, diamond rings, and plenty of Christian Dior were seized from Caddick’s home.
The Federal Court, on Friday, heard Christian Dior was seeking leave to intervene in the case against Caddick because it was holding money and documents, such as invoices, in the name of the alleged conwoman.
Dior wants the court to order they can deposit “all funds held in the account held in the name of Melissa Louise Caddick” into the account nominated by the receivers acting for Caddick in the case, a court document filed earlier this week said.
Christian Dior’s lawyer, Masi Zaki, told the court on Friday the designer firm also wanted to hand over any records it held of Caddick’s money.
“We thought that it would be in the interest of stakeholders for — not only the funds that we hold, but the records we hold — to be shared with the receivers sooner rather than later,” he told the court.
The court will have to determine whether the funds held by Christian Dior are Caddick‘s personal funds or those from her investors or company, Maliver, when the matter returns to court later this year.
Mr Zaki told the court Christian Dior makes no representations about who the money actually belongs to, before the court adjourned.
A second court document, released on Friday, showed Caddick’s husband Anthony Koletti was asking for the court to recognise him as the owner of numerous pricey items and an untold amount of money in the missing woman’s superannuation trust.
Mr Koletti has made the move to prevent the court-appointed receivers selling off the items he claims were his as they auction off Caddick’s assets to repay her victims.
It’s not suggested Mr Koletti or any of Caddick’s family were aware of any alleged scams or frauds and they are not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to her disappearance.
The amended claim now includes a line suggesting Caddick’s brother would be paid $1,000,000 from the Caddick Family Trust Superannuation Fund while Mr Koletti would receive the rest of his wife’s money as her dependent — with no figure is listed.
The document also shows Mr Koletti was laying claim to a US$4000 men’s Louis Vuitton digital watch, a Breitling watch, a Canturi 18-carat white gold and diamond cross pendant “gifted” to him by Caddick in 2016 and other jewellery.
He is also claiming two paintings by Adrian Lockhart including one called Love Song and another untitled abstract he claimed was gifted to him by Caddick in 2016.
Perhaps the most sentimentally valuable piece being sought in Mr Koletti’s claim is an 18-carat white gold Cubism ring with 4.26-carat black sapphires — his wedding ring.
The court document states it was given to him by Caddick at their wedding ceremony held on New Year’s Eve 2013 in their former rented harbourside mansion in Rose Bay, overlooking Sydney Harbour.
In coming weeks some of Caddick’s jewels and artworks will go on sale in two Sydney auction houses.
Among them are pieces from Stefano Canturi, the designer behind all of Mr Koletti’s claimed pieces, including the $370,000 black sapphire necklace known as Stella.
Their Dover Heights five-bedroom, three-bathroom mansion with a swimming pool — was sold off for what is believed to have been more than $10 million in late October.
What happened to Melissa Caddick?
Mystery still surrounds the disappearance of conwoman Melissa Caddick two years on.
The businesswoman went missing from the Dover Heights home she shared with her husband Anthony Koletti on November 12, 2020 — just hours after the mansion was raided by the Australian Federal Police and ASIC investigators.
She has not been seen since and had even left her phone and wallet at home.
It was revealed she swindled $20-30 million from her investors through her illegal financial planning business while living the high life — spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on designer clothes, accessories and travel.
The Federal Court ruled Caddick and her company Maliver Pty Ltd had breached corporations law by operating without Australian financial services licences.
Caddick is presumed dead after her foot was found washed up on Bournda Beach, on the NSW south coast, in February 2021.
The rest of her body has not been found.
An inquest into her death in September 2022 looked at her final movements and theories into what happened to her. The findings have not yet been handed down.
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