Fraud accounts for rising share of money-laundering offences, FinTRAC reports — SkimNews
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- FinTRAC disclosed financial intelligence in 3,007 cases to law enforcement in 2025–26, the highest annual number on record, with fraud underlying 31% of those disclosures
- Fraud accounted for 31% of FinTRAC’s intelligence shared with police in 2025–26, up from 20% in 2023–24 and now second only to drug-related money laundering
- Cryptocurrency exchanges faced record penalties, including $20M against KuCoin and nearly $177M against Cryptomus, for violations of Canada’s financial-crime reporting rules
- FinTRAC revoked the registrations of 82 money-services businesses in 2025–26, citing failure to respond to information requests crucial for tracking cross-border crime proceeds
- Rob Stewart, deputy minister of Canada’s new Financial Crimes Agency, confirmed organized-crime groups are increasingly using digital assets to launder money obtained through cyber-enabled fraud
- Victims reported $351 million in fraud losses to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre in the first half of the year, though actual losses are believed to be 10 to 20 times higher due to underreporting
Why it matters: With fraud now driving over 30% of money-laundering alerts and penalties exceeding $247 million, Canada’s enforcement regime is scaling up amid rising cybercrime. The surge in crypto-linked violations shows that regulatory pressure is shifting toward digital asset platforms as key chokepoints for recovering illicit funds.
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