Bank tells couple $450k investment with missing adviser was ‘fake’

When one of Melissa Caddick’s long-term clients checked their share investments after her disappearance, they got the shock of their lives.

When one of Melissa Caddick’s long-term clients checked their share investments with the Commonwealth Bank after her disappearance, they got the shock of their lives.

The couple were told the documents did not look right and there was no record of the direct investment account or their $450,000 self managed super fund.

“They told us (the CommSec portfolio statements) were forgeries,” the investor said.

Melissa Caddick and her husband Anthony Koletti. There is no suggestion he had any involvement in her business dealings. Picture: Facebook

Every account number set up for them by Ms Caddick was one digit short.

“They were pretty good forgeries, you wouldn’t pick it up,” he said.

Like many of the Dover Heights businesswoman’s clients, the couple were friends who had been exposed to her world of wealth, extravagance and what seemed like professionalism.

The 49-year-old made them believe they were making high returns on their superannuation investments by providing fake monthly CommSec statements.

The investor told The Saturday Telegraph he “implicitly trusted” Ms Caddick. He had known her family for 20 years before investing his and his wife’s superannuation with her.

“We started out in 2014 but we got our money back,” he said. “She had said she was getting rid of her smaller clients but now I know what I know, it was caused by my accountant asking questions and not getting answers.”

The man, who like many of her clients had shared dinners with Mrs Caddick at her $7m home, withdrew his funds in February but in July asked about reinvesting superannuation with her.

Melissa Caddick's $7m Dover heights home.

Ms Caddick agreed to do it but told the man his accountant “was too slow”.

She asked him to go through another accountant, who was looking after several of her other clients.

“Every month she sent us a statement – we even had to pay tax on it,” the man said.

The couple last heard from Ms Caddick the day before she disappeared — Tuesday, November 10 — when she sent an email requesting a document.

When she went missing, she was at the centre of an Australian Securities and Investment Commission investigation.

Because many of her investors trusted her with their superannuation, Ms Caddick didn’t need to worry about regular withdrawals.

“You could see the amount was growing in the monthly statements you get from her,” another man, whose family invested with Ms Caddick, said.

Asked where she might be, the investor said: “She was a meticulous planner and she must have realised this was going to close in on her. I think she has implemented her plan B and probably with a new identity.”