Canadian Addresses Are Being Used by Fraudulent Companies to Launder Cryptocurrency ⇥ theijf.org
Zak Vescera and Adrian Ghobrial, Investigative Journalism Foundation:
An IJF and CTV National News investigation has found 422 Richards St. is one of dozens of cases across Canada where multiple money services businesses (MSBs) are incorporated at the same address, sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the location’s actual occupant.
Financial crime experts say it goes against the spirit of Canada’s registration requirements for such businesses, which are considered high-risk for money laundering and terrorist financing.
According to [Richard] Sanders, all 122 of the services he tested are processing transactions through a company called Cryptomus, which says it is a cryptocurrency payments platform based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Cryptomus’ website says its parent firm — Xeltox Enterprises Ltd. (formerly certa-pay[.]com) — is registered as a money service business (MSB) with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
Sanders said the payment data he gathered also shows that at least 56 cryptocurrency exchanges are currently using Cryptomus to process transactions, including financial entities with names like casher[.]su, grumbot[.]com, flymoney[.]biz, obama[.]ru and swop[.]is.
Between this and TD Bank laundering drug money, Canada sure is making a name for itself as a great place for financial crime. We are not yet the United Kingdom but it is good to have aspirations I suppose.