A missing investment broker has been charged with fraud, five years after dozens of his clients lost the retirement savings they had invested with him.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Bruce Elmore, who has disappeared, but was charged on March 14 despite his absence, the RCMP told CBC Tuesday.

Now the bankruptcy trustee who investigated the case and some of the victims are raising questions about the way the RCMP handled the case, asking why they were not informed about the charges.

Bankruptcy trustee Brian Doyle investigated the case after Elmore Financial Services declared bankruptcy in 2002.

He discovered that more than 40 clients had bought what they believed were conservative investments from Elmore Financial Services over a decade, and Elmore had gambled the money away on the stock market.

RCMP too busy: bankruptcy trustee

Doyle said he deemed the matter very serious, and through financial authorities, asked the RCMP to conduct their own investigation. However, Doyle said, he was told the RCMP were too busy with investigations after the Sept. 11 attacks to look into the case.

"So they didn't have the manpower to investigate commercial crime," he said.

Elmore's former clients Peter and Helen Bunn said they were among many educated professionals who lost their retirement savings buying investments from Doyle.

Peter Bunn said he doesn't believe enough resources are being given to RCMP to investigate white-collar crime, and he doesn't understand why it took investigators five years to lay charges. He said RCMP called him just once during the investigation and never told him about the charges.

"I'm enormously puzzled at the lack of ongoing communication," said Bunn, who learned of the charges from the CBC.

But RCMP Cpl. J.J. Hainey said police had reasons for not informing the victims or bankruptcy trustee.

"We didn't notify the people involved with the case so we wouldn't alert the subject, as we were looking for him."

University of Ottawa criminal law professor David Paciocco said the nature of white-collar crimes requires investigators to sift through piles of documents and numbers, making it very difficult for them to put the case together.