October 25, 2007

FINTRAC Working to Protect the Security of Canadians

OTTAWA, October 25, 2007 – The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today tabled in Parliament the 2006-07 Annual Report of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). The report highlights that the number of case disclosures FINTRAC issued this year rose by 15 per cent to 193. FINTRAC disclosures contain financial intelligence the Centre suspects would be relevant to investigations of money laundering, terrorist activity financing or other threats to the security of Canada.

“FINTRAC has made great advances in making Canada a hostile environment for money laundering, the financing of terror and major crime,” said Minister Flaherty. “The recent amendments brought by Bill C-25 have strengthened Canada’s laws and expanded the information that FINTRAC can provide to investigations.”

FINTRAC's results reflect its strategy of targeting larger and more complex networks engaged in money laundering or terrorist financing activity. This year it has disclosed a significant number of large cases, that is, with disclosed transactions valued at more than $50 million. The total value of disclosed transactions suspected of being relevant to an investigation or prosecution of money laundering offences reached $10 billion. Although this figure represents transactions disclosed as suspicious, it is not, by itself, a measure of the magnitude of money laundering or terrorist financing in Canada.

"Such large dollar values suggest very large international criminal operations and that the criminal networks behind such operations are increasingly vulnerable to FINTRAC’s ability to detect them,” said FINTRAC Director Horst Intscher.

Included in the 193 case disclosures, were 33 cases disclosed to CSIS or the RCMP suspected to be relevant to investigations of terrorist activity financing or threats to the security of Canada, as defined in the CSIS Act. These case disclosures involved $209 million in transactions, down from $256 million last year.

FINTRAC is an independent federal government agency with a mandate to collect, analyze and assess financial transaction reports. FINTRAC discloses financial intelligence to law enforcement and CSIS where it has reasonable grounds to suspect that the information would assist in the investigation of money laundering and terrorist activity financing offences or threats to the security of Canada.

FINTRAC is part of Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Activity Financing Initiative. The initiative is led by the Department of Finance and includes the RCMP, CSIS, Public Safety Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, Canada Border Services Agency, the Communications Security Establishment and the Department of Justice.

Further information:

Peter Lamey,
Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada,
613-943-3399

Highlights of the 2006-2007 Annual Report

Consult the 2007 Annual Report

Backgrounder on Bill C-25