ENCORE: Melissa Caddick: Trouble Afoot

March 16, 2026·42 min·3 clips

When federal police swarmed her mansion and asked Melissa to identify the high-value jewelry, she replied: 'They're all high-value.'

Sydney glamour does the setup. The cold open puts Melissa Caddick in the eastern suburbs with penthouse views and designer handbags, then pulls it straight into a financial scandal. Then comes the missing-person turn. Police raid her house, she disappears the next morning, and months later the only remains mentioned are a foot on a remote beach. Subtle, this is not. The update is quieter but heavy on paperwork: 32 victims, a class action, a $3.5 million settlement, and receivers selling off her estate. The scheme itself looks almost stupidly simple. After Melissa is told she cannot work as a financial planner and could face jail time plus a $20,000 fine, she spots Jane's new financial services number. Jane is not some random name in a file. She manages Melissa's life insurance policy, knew her from the Wise days, and becomes the available gatekeeper Melissa decides to call. The ask is weirdly direct. Melissa wants to work under Jane's financial services number. Jane considers it, then says no because supervising other advisors would be too risky. Melissa says she understands. Later that same month, a financial services guide for a new Molliver investor includes the company's mission and, neatly enough, Jane's number. That copy-paste is where the trap starts to close. The hosts circle the obvious question: why ask permission if she was going to use the number after being refused? Their guesses are plain. An application would need recent professional references and a business plan, while Melissa had left Wise badly and was working mostly off the books. The shortcut starts to make a nasty kind of sense. In this excerpt, Caddick's scam looks like status theater running on borrowed credibility, copied paperwork, and a bet that nobody would check too hard.

As heard by us

A glittery fraud story that stays focused on the mechanics of how the scam worked.

Melissa Caddick's story is presented as a glittery finance scandal, all penthouse views, designer handbags, and a disappearance after police raided her house.

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Why you'd press play

You want the scandal, the disappearance, and the foot nobody could forget.

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