Forestry officers say they've uncovered a major case of fraud in B.C.'s forest sector.

CBC News has learned three men are each facing one charge of fraud over $5,000, after the joint 18-month investigation between the RCMP and the Ministry of Forest and Range.

Police allege Kenneth Henning Anderson, Kevin Leon Anderson and Gregory Dale Spyker, the owners of OK Log Sort Ltd. based in Kamloops in B.C.'s southern Interior, went to extraordinary lengths to crack software used to schedule random checks on loads of logs the company was handling.

"The allegations are … that [this] company manipulated the software so they knew when the random weighing was going to occur," said RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen.

"They then ensured that lower quality logs were being weighed as a random sample, thus lowering the stumpage rates that they were responsible to pay the government."

Search warrants indicate one of the men consulted a statistician to try to figure out the program.

Now, the three are accused of cheating the government of nearly $600,000.

"I think it is fairly significant in the dollar value, and I think what makes it unique is the fact that it's the manipulation of software — of high-tech software — which makes this very, very unique," Thiessen said.

Dan Graham, the director of compliance and enforcement for the ministry, said the case was a true test for his special investigations unit.

"There's a number of small-scale inconsistencies that pop up from time to time that we pursue, but cases like this — this size and dollar value and intentional manipulation — are very atypical," Graham said.

"I've been the director of the program for about seven years now, and this is the first case of this type that I've come across."

Graham said the investigation resulted in changes to the software and the timing of the checks.

"It has alerted us to the risks involved in revenue manipulation and we are doing a higher level of inspection in these issues," he said.

The three men are set to appear in court in Penticton, B.C., in August.