Auditor General says FINTRAC delays weaken Canada’s fight against money laundering

Canada’s Auditor General says the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) has not effectively overseen compliance with anti-money laundering laws or provided timely financial intelligence to law enforcement.

The audit found that FINTRAC took an average of about four months to share financial intelligence after police raised concerns. Half of surveyed recipients said the information arrived too late to be useful, limiting authorities’ ability to freeze assets, stop transactions and apprehend suspects.

The agency also relied on quicker but less thorough assessments to supervise businesses such as banks, casinos and mortgage lenders. In addition, about 2,500 requests from money services businesses remained unprocessed following a cyber incident that forced FINTRAC to take its registration system offline.

A 2020 estimate cited in the report suggests between $45 billion and $113 billion is laundered through Canada annually. The audit also found that the share of intelligence FINTRAC proactively shared with law enforcement fell from 38 per cent in 2021–22 to 23 per cent in 2024–25.

The Auditor General recommended that FINTRAC speed up intelligence sharing, strengthen verification of information submitted by businesses in higher-risk sectors and improve performance reporting to show the actual impact of its work.