Police are accusing a pair of men of running an investment scam that has taken $1.5 million from 160 investors.
The RCMP’s Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Financial Crime Unit, along with the Barrie Police Service, announced that it has charged Douglas Stewart McLeish Scott, 66, of Toronto and Cranbrook, B.C., and Claude Gerard Taillefer, 63, of Shanty Bay, Ont. with fraud (over $5,000), conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering, among other charges. Police have issued warrants for their arrest and are seeking the suspects. The allegations against them have not been proven.
Police allege that between 2006 and 2008, over 160 Canadians invested in what they believed to be mining rights in Montana through BHF Waste Management Limited Partnerships, which were managed by Scott and Taillefer. Instead, police say that their funds were diverted to two offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas.
“The investors were led to believe that they had bought the mining rights directly from a business located in Dillon, Montana, when in fact they were paying an inflated price to a shell company with the same name that was registered in the country of St. Kitts and Nevis,” police say.
The investigation was sparked by a complaint to the Saskatoon Police Service, which led to the RCMP’s investigation involving the execution of search warrants and production orders in Ontario and Manitoba, along with the collection of evidence from the U.S., St. Kitts, and the Bahamas. Police note that the investigation revealed that several individuals played a part in the scam, and benefited either from laundering the proceeds, or being paid wages from investor funds. It says that the victims are located primarily in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta.