Melissa Caddick spent up to $24m of investor funds on herself

Financial fraudster Melissa Caddick may have spent up to $23.7 million of the $30.1 million she tricked 72 investors into handing over, the Federal Court has been told on Tuesday.

Financial fraudster Melissa Caddick may have blown up to $23.7 million of the $30.1 million she tricked 72 investors into handing over, the Federal Court has been told on Tuesday.

The money they invested with the dodgy businesswoman soared year by year from just over $305,000 when she set up her scam in 2012 to a staggering $7.7 million in 2020 before she disappeared in November that year after her Dover Heights mansion was raided by federal police.

The devastating news that after selling her real estate, cars and jewellery there may still be a deficit for investors of between $15 million and $23.7 million was revealed by counsel for ASIC, Farid Assaf SC.

Melissa Caddick may have spent up to $23.7m of the $30.1m she tricked 72 investors into handing over.

ASIC raid Melissa Caddick’s home shortly before she disappeared. Picture: NSW Police.

One of Caddick’s first victims was a woman she knew from preschool as she not only stole the money of the investors but charged them annual fees for the non-existent management of their affairs as part of the complex fraud, the court heard.

Mr Assaf told the Federal Court that the investors were entitled to get as much as possible back from Caddick and her “sham” company Maliver under legal precedents that meant that as thieves, they had stolen the money.

He said there was evidence that the deposit on her eastern suburbs home and mortgage payments came from investor funds as did money for her Edgecliff penthouse, an Audi, Mercedes and jewellery.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wanted to get as much back as they could, as fast and as cheaply as they could for investors, creditors and Caddick’s parents, Barbara and Edward Grimley, Mr Assaf said.

There are over 20,000 pages of evidence.

ASIC wants the provisional liquidators appointed to Caddick’s private assets, Bruce Gleeson and Daniel Soire, to also be appointed to assets held by her company Maliver because the funds were mixed.

“We say Maliver was all a sham,” Mr Assaf said.

He said Caddick’s life as a wealthy businesswoman was all a facade and not one of the investments portfolios she prepared for her 72 clients – sent out under the name of Maliver – was genuine.

He said the provisional receivers had identified 37 bank accounts in her name and from October 2012, when she set up her “financial services business”, all the funds apart from limited sums came from investors.

The only private funds were child maintenance payments for her son, funds from her parents and her brother and from the sale of her former Kensington home in April 2014.

There’s no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of anyone else aside from Ms Caddick.

Caddick with her husband Anthony Koletti.

Caddick, 49, who is believed to be dead after one of her feet was found on a south coast beach in February this year, had built up a “sizeable and loyal client base” and displayed the trappings of wealth such as real estate, cars and jewellery but it was all fake, Mr Assaf said.

He said the 72 investors included three companies, 31 self-managed superannuation funds and 36 individuals who invested a total of $30,195,000.

He said 37 investors received fictitious returns on their investments of $8.526,787 on paper but they were “not returns at all”.

The hearing before Justice Brigette Markovic is expected to last two days.