Federal anti-money laundering authorities are sounding the alarm about a surge in illicit financial activity that’s being driven by extortion targeting the South Asian community in Canada, often perpetrated by foreign organized crime groups.
On Thursday, the Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) published a bulletin to highlight the growing incidence of extortion, and to help firms identify and report suspicious activity that may arise from extortion.
Already this year, FINTRAC has generated more disclosures to law enforcement flagging suspected extortion than it did in 2024 and 2025 combined, it reported — involving more than 300 subjects and upwards of 63,000 financial transactions.
“Extortion is a rising threat to the safety of Canadians, impacting more and more families and businesses,” said François-Philippe Champagne, federal minister of finance and national revenue, in a release.
In an effort to combat that threat, FINTRAC has stepped up its support to law enforcement in this area, deploying officers to help provide financial intelligence to investigators, and increasing the resources devoted to generating timely intelligence for law enforcement.
The agency issued the special bulletin to alert industry firms to the threat, which includes both classic and contemporary money laundering patterns, utilizing financial institutions, such as banks and credit unions, along with money services businesses, including crypto platforms.
“The money‑laundering methods used by criminal groups involved in South Asian diaspora‑targeted extortion primarily involve substantial cash placement through bank deposits and automated teller machine transactions, as well as heavy layering and flow-through using email money transfers,” it noted.
Reports of suspicious transactions involving suspected extortion often include customers that are processing transfers and cash deposits that are inconsistent with their status as students, it said, adding that it also indicates that criminals are using money mules “to layer the proceeds of crime and conceal financial source and destination.”
“In cases associated with extortion directed at the South Asian diaspora community, the individual will typically be between 17 and 28 years old, possess an Indian passport and have identified as an international student at account creation, generally at a college rather than a university,” the bulletin said.
These customers will likely make unexplained deposits that finance repeated email transfers, and use money services businesses or banks to make transactions with counterparties in India, the United Arab Emirates, the U.K., and possibly Portugal or Kenya.
The victims of extortion are likely to be local business owners, FINTRAC noted, and their transactions are likely to involve large cash withdrawals or wire transfers that are inconsistent with past transaction history.
“The customer may be nervous or distressed and appear to be receiving direction or coaching as they attempt to liquidate long-term investments or execute large or multiple outgoing wires,” the bulletin said.
While the extortion demands themselves are often large — seeking hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars from victims — the actual transactions related to this activity are typically much lower, which FINTRAC said indicates that victims are negotiating down initial demands, or agreeing to payment plans that spread payouts over time.
“Typical financial behaviours include cash collection and informal remittance channels to conceal participants, rapid transfers across provinces aligned with multi-jurisdictional crime groups, use of nominees, relatives, or temporary residents to receive or forward funds,” it said.