Con-woman Melissa Caddick's victims share 'small pot' last cash

Investors defrauded by Melissa Caddick who have recouped losses through a class action will not benefit from a final payout from liquidators of her property.

Caddick was a self-styled financial advisor who conned 55 family and friends out of $23 million between 2012 and 2020 and lived a life of luxury through her investment scam.

The 49-year-old disappeared in November 2020, days after her luxury home in Sydney's affluent east was raided by ASIC agents investigating her Ponzi scheme.

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Liquidators retained to claw back the lost funds have completed their task with the Federal Court approving one final repayment to investors.

About $7.3 million had already been sent back in two tranches to victims, ensuring they received 31.4 cents in the dollar back, barrister Nicola Bailey said during a court hearing on Wednesday.

The distribution of a third payment of just under $100,000 was green-lit by Justice Brigitte Markovic.

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This will be split between investors who were not able to benefit from a separate $3.5 million class action settlement approved by the court in April 2025.

That action was run on behalf of self-managed superannuation funds who were defrauded by the 49-year-old.

Five auditors accused of failing to identify fraudulent documents made the multimillion-dollar payout but did not admit liability.

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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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