Canada’s monetary watchdog has levied its largest-ever penalty in opposition to a crypto agency. Vancouver’s Cryptomus faces a $126 million positive for failing to report greater than 1,000 suspicious transactions linked to darknet markets and terrorist financing in a single month.
Abstract
- FINTRAC fined Vancouver-based Cryptomus $126 million, Canada’s largest crypto penalty so far.
- Regulators cited over 1,000 unreported suspicious transactions and greater than 7,500 transfers linked to Iran.
In a assertion the Monetary Transactions and Experiences Evaluation Centre of Canada introduced it had levied an administrative financial penalty of C$176.96 million (about $126 million) in opposition to Xeltox Enterprises Ltd., the Vancouver-based entity working the crypto platform Cryptomus.
The penalty, issued on Oct. 16, stems from what the company described as non-compliance so extreme that it allowed the platform to course of greater than a thousand suspicious transactions in a single month with no single report back to authorities.
FINTRAC linked these failures to the laundering of proceeds from trafficking in youngster sexual abuse materials, fraud, ransomware, and sanctions evasion.
“Provided that quite a few violations on this case have been linked to trafficking in youngster sexual abuse materials, fraud, ransomware funds and sanctions evasion, FINTRAC was compelled to take this unprecedented enforcement motion,” FINTRAC CEO Sarah Paquet mentioned.
A sample of non-compliance and cross-border blind spots
FINTRAC’s examination revealed that Cryptomus operated for a complete month with out reporting 1,518 separate digital forex transactions that met or exceeded the C$10,000 threshold.
This basic reporting requirement is a cornerstone of Canada’s anti-money laundering framework, designed to create a monetary path for giant actions of worth. The sheer quantity of those missed stories suggests a monitoring system that was both damaged or fully absent.
Compounding these failures was the agency’s neglect of a particular Ministerial Directive regarding Iran. Between July and December of 2024, Cryptomus didn’t report a staggering 7,557 transactions originating from the sanctioned nation. By ignoring this, the buying and selling platform allegedly created a direct channel that would have been exploited for sanctions evasion, a crucial nationwide safety concern.
Notably, this was not an remoted incident for the Vancouver-based agency. The sample of regulatory disregard was already evident final Could, when the B.C. Securities Fee quickly banned Cryptomus from buying and selling securities and different market actions.
Inside Canada’s evolving crypto panorama, the penalty marks a turning level. Simply final yr, FINTRAC’s largest positive, round C$20 million, was levied in opposition to KuCoin operator Peken International Ltd. The Cryptomus case eclipses that document practically ninefold, sending a transparent message to digital-asset companies that systemic neglect of compliance obligations is not tolerable.
