Sixfold increase in extortion cases in Canada so far this year: FINTRAC

OTTAWA — Canada’s financial intelligence agency will report Thursday that extortion is soaring, with a growing number of those crimes committed against Canadians of Indian or south Asian descent by criminal organizations with direct ties to that region.

In a new report obtained by National Post, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) said extortion cases have increased more than sixfold over the first four months of 2026. The agency’s report said it has already logged more extortion cases so far this year than the previous two years combined, part of a dramatic increase in financial crimes in Canada over the last few years.

The FINTRAC report said the centre has handed off to police more than 100 such distortion cases since the start of the year, with the vast majority of the crimes occurring in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.

Many of the communications between the criminals and victims involve threatening phone calls or encrypted social media messages where the targets receive various threats if they don’t pay large sums of money. While actual payments are often in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, some targets are told they must pay more than $100,000 or even $1 million.

The 100 distortion cases involve more than 300 subjects and more than 63,000 financial transactions, usually linked to money laundering and sometimes even terrorist financing. Victims are often small and medium-sized business owners in sectors such as retail, transportation, construction, real estate and hospitality.

The extortion schemes often involve agents acting as bridges between the criminal organization and the intended victim. The agents are typically between 17 and 28 years old, carry an Indian passport and are registered as foreign students at a community college.

Once a payment has been extorted, the agent will often make deposits at multiple financial institutions or money services businesses and then send money to people or companies in India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, or perhaps Kenya or Portugal.

FINTRAC says that its analysis shows that multiple crime organizations appear to be involved in this extortion wave, including two well-known rival gangs, the Bishnoi Gang and Bambiha Gang, both based in northern India.

The two organizations, each of which got their start in the 2010s, are best known for such crimes as extortion and contract killings. While their reach extends beyond India and Canada, their crimes in this country are often targeted at Indo-Canadian businesses and individuals.

FINTRAC says domestic copycat groups are also playing a role, by trying to leverage the fear being generated by the crime groups and sometimes falsely claiming to be part of those organizations.

“By following the money and leveraging the power of financial intelligence,” Sarah Paquet, FINTRAC’s chief executive officer, was quoted as saying in a news release, “we can effectively target, disrupt and dismantle the organized criminal networks that profit from this illicit activity and threaten the safety of Canadians.”

This wave of extortion is part of a recent spike in financial crime, spurred in part by the proliferation of the digital world, the virtual currency market in particular. FINTRAC reported last fall that the organization easily set a new record in the number of cases that it sent to police for possible criminal investigation.

The increase was a function of big leaps in fraud, cyber ransomware, online child sexual exploitation and a range of other online crimes that are often directly related to other financial crimes, such as money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has said that Canadians were scammed out of $643-million in online fraud in 2024, almost three times the figure from just four years earlier.

The federal government has said that less than 10 per cent of these types of scams are reported to authorities.

Local police forces in larger communities and the federal government have taken steps to try to respond to the growth of online crimes. The Liberal government announced late last year that it would launch a new Financial Crimes Agency, aimed at trying to improve Canada’s ability to tackle online scams, money laundering and other types of fraud.

The fight against such crimes also got a boost earlier this year from legislative changes to the Bank Act. The new legislation requires banks and other financial institutions to play a larger and more proactive role in detecting and fighting various types of fraud.

Many local police forces have also made the prevention of extortion and other financial crimes a priority in recent years, allocating resources to new technology and hiring specialists.

National Post

• Financial crimes, including money laundering and terror financing, setting new records: FINTRAC
• Feds announce agency to tackle online scams and money laundering

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