Foot belonging to missing fraud suspect turns up on beach in Australia
The woman was missing since November 2020
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Your support makes all the difference.Australian police have found a foot belonging to 49-year-old businesswoman Melissa Caddick, who was missing since 13 November last year after the federal police had raided her home in connection with a case related to financial fraud.
Caddick, resident of a wealthy Sydney suburb, was allegedly a suspect in cases of fraud amounting to millions of dollars.
On 21 February, a group of people were walking along Bournda Beach, about 400 kilometres south of Sydney, when they located a running shoe containing human remains.
The local police had seized the shoe and the remains were sent for forensic examinations and a DNA test of the foot confirmed it to be of Caddick, reported BBC News.
The police are trying to ascertain the time and cause of the death, but ocean drift modelling showed it was possible that she entered the water near her home in Sydney.
New South Wales Police’s assistant commissioner Mick Willing said it remains “a mystery as to when and how she came into the water” but stated that right now they can’t rule out anything.
“We have kept an open mind, however, given the circumstances of her disappearance... we have always considered the possibility that she may have taken her own life,” said Mr Willing.
The police are conducting further searches around the Bournda beach area and along the NSW coastline.
He said her family has been informed about the discovery and they were “obviously distressed.”
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), she had committed fraud with over 60 people including family members and friends to the tune of about A$13m (£7.3m).
In November 2020, Caddick was reported missing by her son and husband and since then there had been no trace of her. Her family believed that she had gone out for an early-morning run.
Till this discovery, there was no information about her even as the investigating authorities believed that she was alive.
According to recent news reports, investigation into financial misconduct, so far, have found that instead of investing funds from her investors, Caddick used to allegedly transfer money into her personal accounts and that she created several false documents.
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