What happened to Melissa Caddick? The true story behind ITV’s Vanishing Act

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.”

The cast of ITV’s Vanishing Act

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.