Canada’s anti-money laundering (AML) watchdog, The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), recently announced that it had imposed a fine of $126 million on crypto trading platform Cryptomus for failure to report illicit transactions.
Notably, the fine imposed by FINTRAC on the trading platform is the largest penalty slapped on a Canada-based virtual assets entity to date. Cryptomus failed to report more than 1,000 suspicious transactions between July 1, 2024, and July 31, 2024.
In addition to the 1,000 unreported transactions, Cryptomus was also found guilty of not reporting 1,500 large digital currency transactions with questionable digital trails. It also failed to comply with a Ministerial Directive.
The regulator stated that the unreported transactions were largely related to child sexual abuse material, ransomware payments, fraud, and sanctions evasion. Further, Cryptomus failed to keep its compliance policies updated.
Per the FINTRAC press release, Cryptomus also did not assess risks of illicit finance, and failed to report crucial business changes as required by law. Commenting on the development, FINTRAC CEO Sarah Paquet said:
Given that numerous violations in this case were connected to trafficking in child sexual abuse material, fraud, ransomware payments and sanctions evasion, Fintrac was compelled to take this unprecedented enforcement action.
