Some international students are implicated in money laundering activities for organized criminal networks operating in Canada, according to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), which named students from China and Hong Kong.
According to a May 2022 report from FINTRAC, underground banking—informal value transfer systems (IVTS) that help parties in different jurisdictions transmit money—is carried out in three main hubs in Canada: the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), metro Vancouver, and the Calgary-Edmonton corridor.
The report noted that IVTS are often affiliated with and operated within overseas diaspora communities that send and receive legitimate funds between community members and expatriate workers. However, it is also susceptible to misuse by criminal groups, particularly for moving funds between restricted and unrestricted jurisdictions….