Canada’s AML Watchdog Slaps Cryptomus With $126 Million Fine Amid Major Compliance Lapses
Canada’s anti-money laundering (AML) watchdog, The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), not too long ago introduced that it had imposed a effective of $126 million on crypto buying and selling platform Cryptomus for failure to report illicit transactions.
FINTRAC Slaps $126 Million Fine On Crypto Exchange Cryptomus
According to an official announcement on October 22, Canada’s FINTRAC has slapped a large penalty of $126 million on Vancouver-based digital belongings buying and selling platform Cryptomus. The trade was present in breach of a number of federal AML and counter-terrorist financing legal guidelines.
Notably, the effective imposed by FINTRAC on the buying and selling platform is the biggest penalty slapped on a Canada-based digital belongings entity to this point. Cryptomus didn’t report greater than 1,000 suspicious transactions between July 1, 2024, and July 31, 2024.
In addition to the 1,000 unreported transactions, Cryptomus was additionally discovered responsible of not reporting 1,500 massive digital foreign money transactions with questionable digital trails. It additionally didn’t adjust to a Ministerial Directive.
The regulator said that the unreported transactions have been largely associated to youngster sexual abuse materials, ransomware funds, fraud, and sanctions evasion. Further, Cryptomus didn’t hold its compliance insurance policies up to date.
Per the FINTRAC press launch, Cryptomus additionally didn’t assess dangers of illicit finance, and didn’t report essential enterprise modifications as required by legislation. Commenting on the event, FINTRAC CEO Sarah Paquet mentioned:
Given that quite a few violations on this case have been related to trafficking in youngster sexual abuse materials, fraud, ransomware funds and sanctions evasion, Fintrac was compelled to take this unprecedented enforcement motion.
It needs to be highlighted that the Canadian monetary regulator has been having a comparatively busy 2025. Earlier this yr, in February, FINTRAC issued an alert in regards to the position of digital asset funds in cleansing illicit funds tied to fentanyl and opioid trafficking.
Similarly, in September, the Canadian police confirmed the biggest digital belongings seizure within the nation’s historical past. At the time, Canada’s RCMP seized digital belongings value $40 million belonging to Montreal-based crypto trade TradeOgre.
2025: The Year Of Penalties
2025 has seen an uptick in digital belongings entities and merchants going through fines for breach of legal guidelines. For instance, Hungary’s monetary watchdog announced that merchants may face 5 years in jail for buying and selling on unauthorized digital belongings buying and selling platforms.
Similarly, one of many largest international digital belongings exchanges by buying and selling quantity, OKX, pleaded responsible to working an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise within the US. As a consequence, the trade was fined $504 million.
That mentioned, some international locations’ residents are pushing again towards draconian digital belongings legal guidelines. For occasion, a controversial digital belongings invoice in Poland – Bill 1424 – is facing pushback from the Polish digital belongings neighborhood. At press time, Bitcoin trades at $109,401, up 1.1% prior to now 24 hours.