Years before she defrauded investors out of $23 million, conwoman Melissa Caddick defrauded her pals out of $50 in a sleazy scheme to avoid paying for a shared birthday present.
Caddick, 49, went missing from her Sydney house in November 2020, only hours after officials executed a search warrant on her Dover Heights home and said they had uncovered her Ponzi scam.
Caddick’s severed and rotting foot was discovered three months later, on February 21, by campers on a NSW beach, leading authorities to suspect she had plunged from the cliffs near her house and perished.
Caddick had mastered the art of deception long before she was discovered defrauding millions to support her extravagant lifestyle.
In the podcast Liar Liar: Melissa Caddick and the Missing Millions’ conclusion, it was revealed that the financial advisor defrauded her friends of $50 in 2012.
Caddick’s friends pooled their money to buy a friend a Thermomix – an all-in-one food processing and culinary gadget that costs between $1500 and $2500 – as a gift.
Caddick was the only one who didn’t pay her portion, forcing pals to go after her.
When questioned, the fraudster said she had already submitted her money and that the problem had to be with her friend’s bank.
She then gave the group with a doctored bank transferral statement to back up her allegation, which was missing a digit, much like her victims’ false Commsec trading accounts.
Caddick sought to con an audio system firm into paying her $65,000 for allegedly broken equipment in December 2015, saying it had cost her two high-priced temporary rental agreements for her Dover Heights home.
After receiving a call from an upset Caddick on Christmas Eve of that year, Len Wallis, the owner of an audio visual equipment firm, said Caddick refused to pay the last $12,000 on her $122,000 account.
Caddick had complained that a freshly installed sound system was not working, according to Mr Wallis.
Following the meeting, Caddick sent Mr Wallis a caustic email, stating that her family was planning a trip to Aspen on Boxing Day and that they planned to rent out their multi-million dollar property in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
She said, however, that both possible renters – one for $40,000 and the other for $30,000 – had canceled because they couldn’t use the audio system.
Mr Wallis received invoices Caddick had sent to the renters, as well as the two payments they had each placed into her account, with the names of both removed for ‘privacy reasons.’
Despite his personnel responding to her call out to service the supplies, the fraudster demanded that Mr Wallis restore her the $65,000 she had to compensate the would-be-leasers.
The lease agreements were wholly fake, whereas the bank deposits genuinely reflected transactions made by Caddick’s investors, according to the records Caddick submitted.
To counter the charges, Mr Wallis recruited attorneys and hired an investigator, who discovered that Caddick’s husband Anthony Koletti interfered with the equipment, causing the malfunction.
Mr Wallis graciously provided the family with a free replacement component for the faulty mechanism when her claim was refused, but he never collected his last $12,000 payment.
The lease agreements were wholly fake, whereas the bank deposits genuinely reflected transactions made by Caddick’s investors, according to the records Caddick submitted.
To counter the charges, Mr Wallis recruited attorneys and hired an investigator, who discovered that Caddick’s husband Anthony Koletti interfered with the equipment, causing the malfunction.
Mr Wallis graciously provided the family with a free replacement component for the faulty mechanism when her claim was refused, but he never collected his last $12,000 payment.
None are thought to have been involved in or were aware of Caddick’s deception, according to liquidator Bruce Gleeson, who is entrusted with retrieving her victims’ assets. Caddick’maintained and controlled’ any information she handed on to advisers, according to Gleeson.
‘She expressly, in our perspective, controlled who she wanted to send information to in order to create financial accounts and tax returns,’ he stated during a February 2021 press conference.
Caddick was also ‘adamant’ about adopting Microsoft Excel, which is more prone to data entry manipulation than other accounting software, according to Mr Gleeson.
Caddick’s acquaintances were not involved in or aware of her fraudulent actions, according to the Daily Mail Australia.
Despite the fact that Caddick sent fabricated statements to her accountants, and the onus of doing so normally falls on the client, it is known that ASIC is now interested in pursuing her auditors for negligence.
Only $7 million of the $30 million Caddick took from investors has ever been recovered, and the chances of recovering the rest are poor.
Investigators were able to recover $52,400 from her bank accounts, $2 million in stock, and $324,000 from the sales of two premium automobiles, an Audi R8 and a Mercedes.
Two of her most valuable assets have yet to be sold: an Edgecliff condominium and her Dover Heights Mansion, both of which have $6 million in mortgages and late penalty payments dating back 18 months.
Despite Mr Koletti’s estimate that the Dover Heights house is worth $15-$17 million, real estate brokers say the mansion is unlikely to sell for that much as the property market continues to fall.
Mr Koletti departed the Dover Heights property in May of this year, months after victims pleaded with the court to sell it.
Mr Koletti also stated that his wife’s stock portfolio was worth $7 million, although Caddick was a bad trader who lost tens of thousands of dollars in the stock market.
When travel limitations were imposed during Covid, the holiday fanatic instead invested her stolen earnings in bitcoin and the stock market.
Caddick’s childhood friend Kate Horn and her relatives, who were the first to invest in her fictitious firm Maliver when it began in 2012, lost around $10 million to Caddick over the course of her eight-year ponzi scam.
Ms Horn planned a modest family gathering for her 50th birthday, but Caddick implored her to join, calling herself a member of her family.
Caddick arrived in a $2500 Dolce and Gabbana gown, purchased with monies from her investors, before schmoozing the attendees, many of whom were directly or indirectly impacted by her misdeeds.
During Mr Koletti’s home interview with Channel 7, the gaudy dress was the only article of clothing not confiscated by ASIC inspectors during the investigation and was discovered on its lonesome in the cabinet.
Anne Horn, Ms Horn’s mother, lost her cash at the convention and now lives on a restricted budget that affects every part of her life.
‘Everything you do, you ask yourself, ‘Can I afford this?’ Is this something I should be doing? Even food shopping is a chore. Before I buy clothing, I ponder… ‘And no, I’m not having a glass of wine tonight,’ she said.
Ms Horn said the deception would be understandable if Caddick had a ‘brain fart’ and took the money, but the scammer’s cold and cruel demeanor made it ‘chilling.’
‘I was working every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights – 10 hour shifts. I had no social life,’ she told the podcast.
‘They were the best paid shifts. It was hard on my body, but I thought that is what I was doing for my future. But the fact she knew that and she continued to be deceitful was just heartbreaking.
‘I would tell her thank you for helping me and my family and Melissa would smile and shrug off my gratitude. It was chilling.
‘She would look me in the eye and say, “that is just what I do”.’
An inquest into Caddick’s disappearance and suspected death will be held in September.