The victims of an alleged Ponzi scheme run by conwoman, Melissa Caddick, have received their first payout.
An initial distribution of $3 million was paid to 55 investors by receivers Jones Partners.
Jones Partners was appointed in December 2020 as receivers of Caddick’s property and liquidators of her company, Maliver.
Part of the distribution came from the sale of her home in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs which sold for $9.8 million earlier this year, and further proceeds are expected from the potential sale of a second Sydney property which will be listed next month.
Principal, Bruce Gleeson, said: “In many Ponzi schemes, it is not unusual for investors to receive no return, so we are pleased to be able to make this distribution and anticipate further significant distributions in the future.
“We have also recently taken possession of the Edgecliff penthouse and are presently preparing it for sale.
“The Edgecliff penthouse in the Eastpoint Tower, Edgecliff, is in a prime location and the sale of it will importantly enable us to make further significant distributions to investors.”
Caddick was alleged to have fraudulently stolen between $20–30 million from investors under the guise of working as a financial adviser, which she spent on designer clothes, jewellery and holidays.
But in November 2020, her Sydney home was raided by ASIC and Caddick went missing.
A foot then washed up on a beach on the NSW South Coast in February 2021, which was understood to belong to Caddick. A NSW coroner ruled she had died.
In November 2021, the Federal Court ruled Caddick carried on a financial services business without holding an Australian financial services licence (AFSL).
In a judgment by Justice Brigitte Markovic, she said: “In my opinion, the evidence establishes Maliver was a vehicle through which Caddick operated and was able to perpetrate a fraud on investors. That is, it was a sham or facade adopted to conceal the reality and was used by Caddick for that purpose.
“The reality was that actions of Maliver were carried out at the behest of Caddick and it was Caddick who took all the necessary steps, provided the purported advice and ran the scheme.”
This woman was NOT an advisor- she was a common conwoman- so why would an industry magazine devote space to update her saga. It’s bad enough that the MSM often misrepresents her as an advisor – but understandable when we give her airtime- IMHO.