The owner of D and E was looking to sell the business. Detectives say the two men who are now in jail agreed to buy D and E for the full asking price. Detectives believe they had no intention of paying for it.

Prosecuting Attorney Ron Cleek says this is only one business on a long list of potential victims.

"I've sent letters out to 36 people so far and I've got several responses back from many states,” said Cleek.

David Wendel and Kenneth Mitan are in the Christian County jail in lieu of $500,000 bonds each. The prosecutor says the pair targets businesses that are either selling or struggling.

Cleek says they showed up at D and E and told the boss they wanted to buy the company.

"He was supposed to receive $3.5 million," the prosecutor said.

The money was supposed to come through a wire transfer. The probable cause statement shows the two told the business owner that there was a problem with the transfer.

"They turned the keys over, they turned over the titles of all the equipment that was owned by the victim, which was quite a lot,” said Cleek.

The prosecutor says Wendel and Mitan convinced their victims at the businesses to transfer all wire transfers, credit cards and to even add their name to the bank accounts. The victims did so thinking that their payments would be received the following day.

"They would allegedly basically scrape the checking account clean and whatever other assets were involved,” said Cleek.

Then, he said, the two men would walk away.

"The FBI, the U.S. Postal Service, New Jersey Police, Alabama police, Georgia police -- there were numerous different law enforcement agencies involved in helping us in our local case,” said Capt. Jeremy Whitehill, Christian County chief sheriff’s deputy.

Whitehill says they located Mitan in New York with help from the U.S. Marshal's Service brought him back to Ozark to face charges.

The owner of D and E declined to talk on the record about the investigation and criminal case.