Two men charged with bilking investors in Sask.

Douglas Stewart McLeish Scott (left) and Claude Gerard Taillefer are seen in this RCMP handout photo.

RCMP have laid charges against two men after dozens of investors, including some in Saskatchewan, lost $1.5 million in an alleged investment scam.

An investigation was launched after Saskatoon police received a complaint that several investors in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta had been defrauded by a business in Barrie, Ont.

The investigation revealed that over 160 Canadians were enticed to invest in a vermiculite mine or mining rights in Dillon, Montana through a company called BHF Waste Management.

Mounties allege investors were led to believe that they had bought the mining rights directly from a business in Dillon, when in fact they were paying an inflated price to a shell company with the same name, which was registered in the country of St. Kitts and Nevis.

RCMP say the two men behind the alleged investment scheme controlled the shell company’s two offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas.

Multiple individuals played a role in the alleged investment scam, Mounties said, and several people benefitted from the laundering of the investment funds or wages paid from that money.

Douglas Stewart McLeish Scott, 66, of Toronto and Cranbrook, B.C. and Claude Gerard Taillefer, 63, of Shanty Bay, Ont. each face several charges, including fraud over $5,000, money laundering and participating in a criminal organization.

Both men are currently being sought on arrest warrants.