3 months after Fintrac hack, experts say Canada missing out on financial intelligence
A critical reporting tool used by Canada’s anti-money-laundering watchdog has been offline for three months creating an intelligence gap that experts say could hamper criminal or national security investigations.
A cyber incident, identified on March 2, forced the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, also known as Fintrac, to shut down its web reporting system, which collects data on millions of suspicious or large cash transaction reports.
While Fintrac says it’s created a work-around to collect reports from larger companies, anti-money laundering and national security experts say despite that the watchdog is potentially missing out on thousands of pieces of financial intelligence used to fight money laundering, terrorist financing and organized crime.
Some of these reports, which could help detect money being sent to conflict zones or identify criminal networks, are not currently being filed, experts say.
“Canada’s financial intelligence capabilities seem to be falling apart, and our allies are paying attention to this,” said Kim Manchester, founder of ManchesterCF, an online financial intelligence training company based in Toronto.
“Our national security is at risk.”
Fintrac works to combat the billions in illicit cash laundered through the country, an estimated $45 billion to $113 billion annually, according to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.
More than 36 million financial transaction reports were sent to Fintrac last year from banks, casinos, real estate companies, mortgage brokers, and other businesses legally required to submit transactions deemed suspicious or large sums of cash over $10,000.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the March cyber attack said that Fintrac discovered an
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