December 12 - The Royal Canadian Mint fell for what's known as a "spear-phishing" scam and almost forked over an employee's paycheque to fraudsters, according to a breach report obtained through access to information. Spear-phishing is a type of fraud which sees swindlers carefully collect information on a target in order to impersonate them. It's one of the "most common and most dangerous attack methods" and it's getting increasingly difficult to investigate, says a bulletin issued by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre last month.

December 10 - Canada's anti-money laundering agency is warning casinos to carefully eye customers who pay for their gaming with bank drafts -- the latest method of choice for criminals trying to disguise dirty money. The federal Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as Fintrac, says in an operational alert issued today that cash is falling out of favour in illicit casino transactions due to intense media and government scrutiny.

December 10 - FINTRAC today launched its most recent Operational Alert, Laundering the proceeds of crime through a casino-related underground banking scheme, at its second national Casino Forum. This Alert will assist businesses in identifying and reporting suspicious transactions that may be related to the activities of professional money launderers and money laundering organizations. These individuals and groups specialize in transforming the proceeds of crime into ‘clean money’ on behalf of criminals and organized crime groups, and regularly use the underground banking system to avoid detection.

December 10 - Project Declass was a 16-month investigation into a drug trafficking network operating out of Winnipeg. The investigation began in August 2018 with the arrest of two Winnipeg residents who were attempting to import 40 kilograms of cocaine into Manitoba. The Manitoba RCMP would like to thank the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Canada Border Service Agency, the Calgary Police Service, Regina Police Service, the MB Liquor & Lotteries Corporation, Seized Property Management Directorate, Health Canada, Fintrac, as well as RCMP investigators in British-Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. These partnerships were crucial to the success of the investigation.

December 09 - The AGA (American Gaming Association), the preeminent lobbying group working on behalf of the gaming industry, has issued new guidelines that are geared towards further safeguarding against money laundering being facilitated inside casinos. Casinos in the United States that generate $1 million or more in annual gross gaming revenue are required under the Bank Secrecy Act to file a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) for any transaction of $10,000 or more in a 24-hour timeframe.

December 06 - On October 18, 2019, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued a Public Statement and a statement on Improving Global Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Compliance. These statements are updated and released following every Plenary. The Public Statement identifies jurisdictions for which the FATF has called on its members to apply countermeasures or enhanced due diligence. The Improving Global AML/CFT Compliance statement identifies those jurisdictions which have developed an action plan with the FATF to address their strategic AML/CFT deficiencies.

December 06 - The federal government is lacking safeguards against money laundering in Ontario’s horse racing industry, the province’s auditor general has found. “For a sector that is vulnerable to money laundering, the horse racing industry in Canada is not accountable to any regulatory body to monitor its operations for this type of crime,” Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk noted in her annual report, released this week. Lysyk offered the contrast of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act in her report, which was noted to have covered the casino sector since 2007.