Canada’s financial intelligence agency aiming to provide crucial info in real time

By Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press on November 26, 2024.

OTTAWA – Canada’s financial intelligence agency says it is modernizing with the aim of providing valuable information to police and security officials in real time – or as close to that goal as it can get.

In its newly released annual report, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada says it is working with businesses and federal partners to move more quickly in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

The agency, known as Fintrac, identifies money linked to illicit activities by electronically sifting millions of pieces of information each year from banks, insurance companies, money services businesses, real-estate brokers, casinos and others.

In turn, it discloses intelligence to police and security agencies about the suspected cases.

In 2023-24, Fintrac produced more than 4,600 financial intelligence disclosure packages for recipients including the RCMP, municipal and provincial police, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canada Revenue Agency.

In a message in the report, Fintrac director Sarah Paquet says the agency aims to harness modern skills, tools and technologies to analyze data and produce intelligence in real time.

Paquet said such swiftness could be a game-changer, for example, in the agency’s efforts to track financial transactions related to human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

“It will allow us to proactively identify and assist law enforcement in disrupting networks much quicker,” she said.

“This will mean rescuing victims sooner, saving them from prolonged abuse. It will mean supporting survivors sooner, getting them the assistance they need in a more timely fashion. And it will help law enforcement target, arrest and charge the traffickers sooner, preventing the abuse of new victims.”

Fintrac’s digital strategy includes advancing automation, analytics and the use of artificial intelligence, Paquet said.

In a bid to “stay ahead of the bad actors,” Fintrac has created a digital acceleration and modernization team “to experiment with, and exploit, the latest technologies.”

Transnational organized crime groups and professional money launderers are the most prominent threats to Canada when it comes to illicit cash transactions, the report said.

“At the same time, while the threat of terrorist financing is not as pronounced in Canada as it is in other regions of the world, there are networks operating in our country that are suspected of raising, collecting and transmitting funds abroad to various terrorist groups.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2024.