The ‘toyboy’, the DJ and the cash withdrawals: Anthony Koletti in the spotlight after wife’s disappearance

Anthony Koletti, the husband of missing fraudster Melissa Caddick, is likely to face a public examination by court-appointed liquidators after lodging a claim over her assets and asserting that his income went to supporting the fraudster and her teenage stepson.

The latest episode of the podcast Liar Liar: Melissa Caddick and the Missing Millions reveals that Koletti’s financial records for a three-year period until March 2020 show thousands of dollars in cash were regularly deposited into his bank account.

Within days, Koletti would withdraw it all via ATMs in hotels around Sydney.

Koletti was thrust into the limelight when his wife disappeared following a raid of their Dover Heights home by the corporate regulator in November 2020 as part of an investigation into a Ponzi scheme Caddick was running.

Caddick, who disappeared in November 2020, stole $23 million from her family and friends who thought she was investing in shares on their behalf.

Despite not being aware of the fraud, Koletti enjoyed eight years living the high-life courtesy of his wife’s Ponzi scheme.

The podcast reveals contradictory claims Koletti has made about his finances.

“Melissa never gave me a cent … I always pay for myself,” Koletti, 40, recently told Channel Seven. “It’s not like I was some desperate Double Bay housewife living off the wife, which is what everyone else thinks. Why wouldn’t I be entitled to something?”

This claim is at odds with what Koletti told the Federal Court in December 2020, only weeks after his wife went missing.

On that occasion, Koletti produced bank records to show he only had $1.95 to his name.

“I was last employed on a part-time basis as a hairdresser until the COVID-19 lockdown commenced in late March 2020,” Koletti said.

The court has also heard that as his wife was the primary breadwinner, it was decided he would quit work altogether to take care of home duties and look after his stepson.

“As a result I do not earn an income. My living expenses and those of our Dover Heights household are paid for by Melissa Caddick,” Koletti said.

Koletti, who declined numerous requests to speak to the podcast, is denying that he lived the high-life on the back of his wife’s fraudulent scheme.

To back up his claims that he supported his wife, he has tendered bank statements from his music production company Paws Off, claiming the statements show he made substantial cash withdrawals which he gave to his wife.

This is at odds with his previous disclosures to the Federal Court that his company Paws Off Productions had no income and no assets.

The podcast reveals in a new episode that Koletti’s bank statements omit a crucial fact.

The hairdresser has failed to explain the source of a total of $54,000 deposited in smaller cash and direct transfers into his business bank account for Paws Off Productions in the three years from April 2017.

This source of income is separate to the $600 to $800 a week he earned from his part-time job at Joh Bailey’s hair salon in Westfield Bondi Junction.

Koletti’s bank records show that at the end of each month, his account only has a few cents in it. But within days a mysterious benefactor makes a cash deposit of thousands of dollars.

The bank statements show Koletti withdraws the money daily in three lots of $500 from ATMs in hotels around Sydney and the Central Coast.

For example, in early May 2017, $5000 in cash is deposited into his account.

On May 12, 2017, Koletti withdraws $1500 in three separate withdrawals at the Crows Nest Hotel. Four day later, he’s at the Eastern Hotel in Bondi Junction making two withdrawals each of $500. The next day he does the same thing at Tea Gardens Hotel in Bondi Junction.

This pattern is repeated month in, month out.

His claim prompted Michael Hayter, the solicitor representing the liquidator of Caddick’s assets, to write to Koletti saying: “At some stage there is going to need to be a reconciliation of not only the payments you assert you have paid for the benefit of Melissa Louise Caddick, but also the payments that you have received the benefit of.

“The benefit you have received appears to far outweigh the cash withdrawals you have highlighted.”

Hayter was referring to the incredible life of luxury that Koletti lived on the back of his wife’s fraud.

Apart from the half a million she spent each year on holidays, Koletti also drove a $390,000 sports car and wore thousands of dollars worth of jewellery and watches which his wife bought him.

Liquidators have told investors in Caddick’s failed scheme that because of the claims made against the fraudster’s assets, including by Koletti and her parents Ted and Barb Grimley, they are now considering public examinations to explore the validity of those claims.

The podcast also reveals some friends and family considered Caddick such a controlling influence over her much younger husband that they dismissively referred to him as “the toyboy”.

Koletti, an aspiring musician and DJ, released an album called Raid in which he makes extraordinary allegations against investigators from the corporate watchdog who uncovered her crimes.

His songs include lyrics recounting the events of the raid from his perspective, including mimicking a female investigator in one song: “You should turn your bodycam off so we don’t get in trouble.”

He sent a text to one of his wife’s victims promising: “All proceeds are going to people who lost money in this tragedy. Not including myself.”

The investor told the podcast: “I haven’t received anything yet and I’m not holding my breath.”