So did Melissa Caddick’s victims finally get paid back? That is the question people keep typing into search bars, years after the Sydney fraudster vanished. The short answer is yes, some of them did. The longer answer involves court dates, sold apartments, and a payout split that has left two very different groups of victims looking at very different numbers.
Here is the full picture, sorted out plainly.
The Number That Matters Right Now
A Federal Court in Sydney approved a $3.54 million settlement for a group of Melissa Caddick’s victims who joined a class action against her estate. According to ABC News, barrister Angus Chapman told the court this outcome was expected to bring investors close to 50 cents back for every dollar they lost.
That is a meaningful recovery for people who once assumed their retirement savings were simply gone. But it only tells half the story, because not everyone who lost money to Caddick took the same legal route.
How Sydney’s Most Talked About Financial Adviser Got Caught
Caddick ran a business called Maliver and told friends, family, and acquaintances she held a proper license through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, known as ASIC. She did not. Investigators later confirmed she had been running an unlicensed operation while quietly funneling client money into her own accounts.
Here is the rough sequence, based on court evidence and reporting:
- A financial adviser flagged suspicions about Caddick’s conduct to ASIC in 2019
- In mid 2020, that same adviser had a chance encounter with one of Caddick’s investors, Dominique Ogilvie, in a dentist’s waiting room, and warned her something was wrong
- Ogilvie pulled her money out soon after, and ASIC formally opened its investigation on September 8, 2020
- On November 11, 2020, ASIC agents and Australian Federal Police officers raided Caddick’s Dover Heights home
- Caddick disappeared the following morning and was never seen again
Months later, a shoe containing a partial human foot washed up on a New South Wales beach. DNA testing confirmed it belonged to her. According to Wikipedia’s detailed case summary, a coroner ruled in May 2023 that Caddick had died, though the exact circumstances remain unresolved.
Where The Settlement Money Actually Came From
None of this payout appeared out of nowhere. It came from selling off everything Caddick owned.
Her mortgaged Dover Heights home sold for $9.8 million back in October 2022. A separate penthouse apartment in Edgecliff was also sold, along with share portfolios tied to her business. Every dollar recovered from those sales has gone toward slowly repaying the roughly 55 people she is accused of defrauding, out of an estimated $23 million taken overall.
The first payment did not reach victims until August 2023, almost three years after Caddick vanished. That timeline alone shows how slow these recoveries tend to move, even once a scheme has been fully exposed.
Why Two Groups Of Victims Are Getting Two Different Deals
This is the part that tends to surprise people. Not every investor joined the class action. Around 23 of them chose a separate legal path and are relying instead on payments distributed directly by liquidators handling Caddick’s estate.
That group has received noticeably less. Based on figures reported by The New Daily, those investors had recovered around 31 cents in the dollar as of two payments totaling $7.3 million, well below the roughly 50 percent recovery rate the class action group is now expecting.
Same fraud, same collapsed company, two very different financial outcomes. It is a reminder that how victims pursue compensation can matter almost as much as the size of the fraud itself.
The Theory That Refuses To Die
Even with a coroner’s ruling on the books, plenty of people are not convinced the Melissa Caddick story is fully closed. Criminologist Xanthe Mallet, an associate professor who has studied the case, has argued publicly that Caddick may have had what she calls a plan B rather than having taken her own life.
Speaking to Woman’s Day around the fifth anniversary of the disappearance, Mallet said Caddick’s personality made suicide seem unlikely to her. Caddick was, in her words, someone who expected to stay ahead of the situation rather than get caught by it. The coroner’s findings still stand as the official record, but theories like this keep the case in headlines years after it should have quietly closed.
What Regular Investors Should Take From This
Whatever happens next with the remaining payouts, the practical lesson from Melissa Caddick’s case has not changed.
- Anyone can check a financial adviser’s license for free through ASIC’s public register before handing over a single dollar
- A self managed super fund gives you control, but that control comes with the responsibility to verify who is actually managing your money
- Personal relationships, including friendships and family ties, are exactly where these schemes tend to hide, because trust replaces due diligence
For the families still waiting on final payments, this case is not really finished. It is simply moving slower than anyone would like, one court date and one asset sale at a time.
