Melissa Caddick, who posed as a financial advisor, deceived 55 family members and friends out of a staggering $23 million from 2012 to 2020, funding her extravagant lifestyle with the ill-gotten gains from her fraudulent investment scheme.
After extensive efforts to recover the stolen money, liquidators have successfully concluded their mission, with the Federal Court sanctioning a final payout to the defrauded investors.
So far, $7.3 million has been returned to victims across two separate installments, allowing them to recoup 31.4 cents on the dollar of their original investments, as detailed by barrister Nicola Bailey during a court session on Wednesday.
Justice Brigitte Markovic has approved the distribution of an additional payment, just shy of $100,000.
This latest sum will be allocated to investors who were not eligible for a separate class action settlement, worth $3.5 million, which the court approved in April 2025.
The class action was initiated on behalf of self-managed superannuation funds that fell victim to the fraudulent activities of the 49-year-old.
Five auditors accused of failing to identify fraudulent documents made the multimillion-dollar payout but did not admit liability.
Bailey said on Wednesday 23 of Caddick’s investors did not participate in the class action.
The liquidators from Jones Partners supported giving the extra funds solely to those who had not received a slice of the settlement, she said.
“‘(That) is the scenario which best seeks to restore the balance to the extent possible with such a small pot,” she told the court.
Investors eligible for the settlement had wished for more money from the liquidator’s pool of cash.
However, no one had objected in court to divvying up the remaining $100,000 only between non-class action investors, Bailey said.
Combining these approved funds and the class action payout, the average return to all investors is 45.5 cents to the dollar.
Justice Markovic approved a further $55,000 payment to Jones Partners to cover its work.
That amount will come out of money clawed back from selling Caddick’s assets including her homes in Edgecliff and Dover Heights in Sydney’s east and luxury items such as jewellery.
The 49-year-old engaged in “a sham or facade” using her company Maliver to transfer investor funds, Justice Markovic found in November 2021 in a separate Federal Court lawsuit brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Maliver was used to conceal that victims’ funds were spent on Caddick’s lavish lifestyle instead of being used to buy shares for their self-managed superannuation funds, the judge said.
Coroner Elizabeth Ryan in May 2023 ruled Caddick was dead, but she was unable to determine the cause because most of her body had not been found.
The fraudster’s badly decomposed right foot, which was still attached to a running shoe, washed up on a beach on the south coast of NSW in February 2021.
Caddick’s husband Anthony Koletti was the last person to see her alive and declared her missing.
He withheld information relating to his wife’s disappearance and could not be ruled out from being involved, the coroner found.
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