Melissa Caddick: The true story behind ITV's Vanishing Act

In the early hours of 12 November, 2020, Melissa Caddick set off on her morning run through Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs. She left without her wallet or keys, and she was never seen or heard from again.

Three months later, and some 250 miles away from the 49-year-old Australian woman’s home, three teenagers who were camping on the south coast of New South Wales found a running shoe. When they turned the shoe upside down to throw it out (warning: a pretty gory image ahead), they discovered there was a severed human foot inside.

The shoe matched a pair that Caddick was previously seen wearing during one of the raids on her home (more on that later), and DNA from her toothbrush matched the DNA found on the foot.

Only after her disappearance did it come to light that the seemingly successful financial advisor has been under investigation from Australia's financial watchdog who had been tipped off that she had been using a friend’s advisor's licence, having pasted her name into the document.

It was suspected that she had stolen $AUD23 million (£12 million) from over 60 clients, including friends and family members, to help fund her lavish lifestyle.

Now, her disappearance is part of a three-part drama series from ITV called Vanishing Act that will be released on 3 August 2023. But who was Melissa Caddick and what do we know about her fraudster double life?

Who was Melissa Caddick and why was she labelled a ‘fraudster’?

Melissa Caddick was a 49-year-old financial advisor living in Dover Heights, a wealthy area of Sydney, Australia.

Caddick had married her former hairdresser, Anthony Koletti, in 2013 after divorcing her first husband, Tony Caddick, earlier that year. She had one child, a son, who was 14 years old at the time she went missing.

While she had worked as a financial advisor in the early 2000s, Caddick was suspected of faking her advisor’s licence when she started her Ponzi scheme in 2012. Over the next eight years she would scam her clients out of $AUD23 million (£12 million).

In 2021, Farid Assad SC, a lawyer who was representing corporate regulator Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) told courts that Caddick had “faked many documents” in her “quite elaborate fraud".

“Ms Caddick built up a sizeable and loyal client base, and befitting of a successful businesswoman were the trappings of wealth, real estate in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, luxury motor vehicles, designer clothing and jewellery,” he said at the time.

“Unfortunately Ms Caddick’s success and the financial services business were all a facade.”

Earlier in 2020, before her disappearance, is when everything began to crumble for Caddick. According to reports, in August 2020 one of Caddick’s investors was talking to another patient in a dentist’s waiting room. The patient knew Caddick and told the investor that Caddick has been using her financial advisor’s licence and that she had tipped her off to ASIC.

ASIC begins its own investigation, and on 10 November, 2020 Caddick’s bank accounts and properties were frozen to prevent her from leaving the country. On 11 November, officers raided her home and left with designer clothes, shoes and jewellery. Caddick went missing the next day.

When did Melissa Caddick go missing?

It was Caddick’s son who heard her leave home at 5.30am on the morning of 12 November, 2020. He assumed that his mother was going for her regular morning run.

Caddick left home without her wallet, keys and mobile phone, and she missed her 4pm deadline to surrender her passport and any plane tickets to the police.

However, it wasn’t until the next day that her husband reported her missing to the police. Three months later, In February 2021, is when her shoe with the foot inside it washed up on the beach.

What happened next?

In May 2023, Caddick was officially declared deceased, although investigators are still stumped as to how or when she died.

“The conclusion I have reached is that Melissa Caddick is deceased. However... I do not consider the evidence to enable a positive finding as to how she died, or when and where this happened," Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan wrote.

An autopsy also could not confirm whether Caddick’s foot was detached from her body by force or through decomposition.

However, an oceanographer confirmed that it was “entirely possible” that Caddick’s body could have entered the water in Sydney in November and ended up 250 miles away in February.

Caddick’s husband Koletti was also accused of odd behaviour after his wife went missing, with a police officer who testified at Caddick’s inquest saying he thought it was “strange a husband would ring the police station, report his wife missing two days later and wasn't prepared to come to the police station”.

The inquest also heard that Koletti had allegedly written a text to their cleaner from Caddick’s phone on the day she went missing to cancel an appointment, and told Caddick’s family that she was at home with him.

Koletti has continuously denied any involvement in his wife’s disappearance.

At the hearing, some of Caddick’s victims testified about losing such large sums of money to the fraudster.

“I sold my business as I was under the impression my money was safe, and I retired in 2017,” one victim recounted.

“To rub more salt in the wound she has also stolen my mother's money, wife's, mother-in-law, son, brother and sister… wiping out three generations of my family's savings.”

What is Vanishing Act about?

Vanishing Act is a three-part drama series from ITV detailing Caddick’s double life and subsequent disappearance.

Australian actor Kate Atkinson plays Caddick, while Jerome Velinsky will play Koletti. The series will be available on ITVX from 3 August, 2023.

ITV has also announced that there will be an accompanying documentary, The Real Vanishing Act: The Missing Millionairess, which will also be released on ITVX on 3 August.

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