Canada’s financial crime agency is reporting a dramatic increase in the number of transactions related to money laundering or criminal activity over the past year.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada identified and referred 919 cases to law enforcement authorities in 2012-13, compared to 796 the previous fiscal year and 556 in 2008-09, according to its annual report released Thursday.
FINTRAC is a government agency that gathers and analyzes financial intelligence to help the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other federal institutions fight money laundering, terrorist activity financing and threats to national security. Thousands of businesses, including casinos, life insurance providers and money service businesses, have to report cash and international electronic fund transfers of $10,000 or more to the agency. Last year FINTRAC received 19.7 million financial transaction reports from businesses, up from 18.5 million in 2011-12.
Of the 919 cases FINTRAC brought to the attention of law enforcement last year, 719 related to money laundering (disguising the source of money acquired by crime), 157 related to terrorist financing and 43 had elements of both money laundering and terrorist financing. Instances of money laundering and terrorist financing reports were on the rise from last year (from 637 and 116 respectively), while reports of dual money laundering-terrorist financing held steady.
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