Only six months before she disappeared, accused fraudster Melissa Caddick sent a cute photo of her cocker spaniel Peter Pan resting on her arm in her home office.
It wasn’t until after Caddick vanished that the recipient, one of her many victims, zoomed in on the photo looking for clues. What she discovered has left her reeling.
A close inspection of the photo reveals that Caddick had made a note to herself recording her average profit – or theft – for the month of May 2020 had reached an extraordinary $46,000 a day, the podcast Liar Liar: Melissa Caddick and the Missing Millions reveals.
The staggering daily profit represents a total of $1.426 million just for the month of May 2020.
Forensic investigators from the corporate regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission have calculated that the year leading up to her disappearance was the fraudster’s most profitable, earning her $7.8 million.
On November 11, 2020, the federal police, on behalf of ASIC, executed search warrants at Caddick’s Dover Heights house in relation to the major Ponzi scheme she was running.
Her investors – mainly family and friends – thought they were investing in shares. Instead, Caddick used their $23 million in funds to live a breathtakingly extravagant lifestyle.
In the early hours of the following morning, she disappeared.
Melissa Caddick and her dogs, and (inset) Melissa Caddick’s dog Peter Pan seated at the fraudster’s desk in front of paperwork saying she was making a $46,000 per day profit.
In February 2021, her partial remains inside her running shoe washed up on a remote South Coast beach. An inquest into her presumed death will be held in September.
In late 2012, Caddick’s oldest friend, Kate Horn, became her first victim. Her extended family later lost almost $10 million.
In 2013, Caddick ratcheted up her criminal endeavours by setting up a fake financial services company Maliver.
She simply cut and pasted a friend’s financial services guide and inserted her own name. She also passed off her friend’s financial services licence as her own.
Caddick knew she would never get the licence, which is regulated by ASIC, as extensive documentation is required to prove that the person has the requisite training and qualifications.
Anthony Koletti and Melissa Caddick chatting with guests on their wedding day on New Year’s Eve, 2013.
She had previously falsified her qualifications claiming she had undergraduate and post-graduate degrees from the University of Technology, Sydney. The university confirmed she had no such degrees.
Within two months of establishing Maliver, she issued a fictitious client with a $1.4 million tax invoice for providing “business consulting services”.
Because her tax returns on the $23 million she stole were works of fiction, Bruce Gleeson, the liquidator of her assets, is seeking refunds from the Australian Tax Office for the taxes she paid on the proceeds of her crime.
The podcast reveals that one of those who did not trust Caddick was her father-in-law, Rodo Koletti, an accountant and a justice of the peace.
He said that whenever the conversation turned to financial matters, “she became too evasive and didn’t answer questions, and went off on a tangent with things that really didn’t make sense”.
Koletti said he was left “just not trusting her”. He was right not to trust her. Whenever Caddick needed a JP to witness legal documents, she simply forged her father-in-law’s signature.
This week will be a hectic one for her family. On Tuesday, her parents Barb and Ted Grimley and her husband Anthony Koletti will be in the Federal Court arguing with the liquidator over Caddick’s assets.
Her husband is claiming a slice of his wife’s $30 million proceeds of crime, including her Gucci wedding dress, $7 million in shares, $2 million worth of jewellery, two properties he claims are valued at $20 million and the proceeds from the sale of their luxury cars.
On Wednesday, Anthony Koletti, a hairdresser, will be in the Local Court contesting an apprehended violence order being sought against him by the police on behalf of ASIC’s lead investigator, Isabella Allen.
In February, Koletti sent an email to the Federal Court judge responsible for deciding what happens to his wife’s assets. “The reason Melissa is deceased and you don’t have a defendant is because of Isabella Allen’s severe negligence and inhumane treatment towards Melissa, Whether Melissa committed suicide or was murdered [sic],” Koletti wrote.