FINA: Mounties Warn of Crypto Ghosts and Elite Escapes

RCMP testifies to Parliament that tax havens, fraud, and money laundering are rampant but prosecutions are rare, resources are thin, and the Liberals’ “solutions” sound more like spin than strategy

Ottawa — On Parliament Hill this week, Canada’s political class finally said the quiet part out loud: the country’s financial system is a comfortable playground for criminals, professional enablers, and offshore tax cheats and the people running it have no idea, or won’t say, how often anyone is actually held to account.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance reconvened its study on the use of offshore tax havens Monday, grilling senior RCMP officials about money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, and the role of Canada’s own institutions. What unfolded was part confession, part deflection, and part political damage control by a Liberal government desperate to present cosmetic “solutions” to a problem it has clearly failed to contain.

The witnesses were Chief Superintendent Michael Saghbini, director general for financial crime with the RCMP’s federal policing criminal operations, and Acting Staff Sergeant Chad Babin, a subject-matter expert on financial crime. From the outset, Saghbini framed financial crime as a core RCMP priority, stressing their mandate to “protect Canada’s economic integrity” and their supporting role alongside the Canada Revenue Agency.

He reminded the committee that the CRA, not the RCMP, is the “lead department responsible for investigating tax evasion related to offshore tax havens,” with its own Criminal Investigations Directorate. The RCMP, he said, “plays an important support role on this issue,” getting involved when tax matters intersect with broader criminal activity such as money laundering, fraud, and corruption.

The message was unmistakable: if you’re looking for someone to blame for the lack of high-profile offshore prosecutions, don’t start with the Mounties.

“Hot button” secrecy and the shell game of ownership

Conservative MP Sandra Cobina, a former financial sector professional, was one of the few committee members who seemed more interested in real accountability than in reciting talking points. She pressed the RCMP on what she called the fundamental frustration of the average Canadian: law-abiding people pay every cent of tax they owe, while those with wealth and access to “sophisticated lawyers and accountants” exploit loopholes and complex schemes to avoid paying their share.

“What do you see as the biggest risk right now,” she asked, “in terms of money laundering, tax evasion, [and] financial crime… and how do we as a country keep up with that?”

Saghbini pointed to cryptocurrencies, layering of corporate structures, and the use of lawyers as fronts, sometimes witting, sometimes not, shielded by solicitor-client privilege. But it was Babin who pinpointed the structural weakness at the heart of Canada’s system and the offshore world it feeds into.

“Beneficial ownership is a hot button topic for us,” he told the committee. “Who actually controls or owns certain trusts or corporations… finding out who the actual owner of those is a challenge for the police, especially when dealing with our international partners in certain jurisdictions.”

Those “certain jurisdictions” are better known by another term: tax havens.

The Government of Canada’s own 2025 National Risk Assessment, Saghbini noted in his opening statement, lists tax evasion as a “high money laundering threat” to the Canadian economy. Proceeds of crime “are routinely wired through tax haven jurisdictions whose opaque financial structures, such as offshore banks, shell companies, trusts [and] law firms, decouple illicit wealth from its original owner,” he said.

In other words: the very architecture of the global financial system, banks, law firms, anonymous companies, is being used to hide the identity of the people moving dirty money. Yet in Canada, a government that claims to be cracking down on this has been conspicuously reluctant to name names or produce results.

Liberals sell new agencies; cops say “we’re not sure how it’s going to look”

If there was a recurring theme from Liberal MPs, it was this: the system is working, progress is being made, and any failures will soon be solved by a new body, a new registry, or a new strategy, all conveniently announced by the same government under fire.

Liberal MP Blake Desjarlais Watsky (sitting in with colleague Carlos Leitoa) highlighted the Canada Financial Crimes Agency, announced in Budget 2025, asking how the RCMP would align its expertise with the new entity so Canada has a “modernized capacity” to investigate offshore tax evasion.

Saghbini’s answer was blunt and, for a government trying to brag, awkward.

“It’s in its infancy stages, and we’re not sure exactly how the agency’s going to look,” he admitted. The RCMP, he said, knows it “will be part of it” and will work “in close collaboration” with the new agency, “however it’s going to look.”

In other words: the government announced a major financial crimes agency before working out what it actually is.

Asked for recommendations to make the new body effective, Saghbini defaulted to vague bureaucratic comfort language, “collaboration,” “joint task force type unit,” “sharing expertise,” “sharing resources,” “sharing best practices.” It was the kind of phrase-book answer designed to reassure everyone while committing to nothing.

Later, Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull went down a similar road, walking the witnesses through more items from the government’s self-congratulatory list: the beneficial ownership registry, the national anti-fraud strategy, and the same new financial crimes agency. He invited them to confirm that these were all meaningful tools.

On the beneficial ownership registry, Saghbini did acknowledge its importance, saying it would help “unravel” layered corporate structures and allow investigators to “start… unpeeling of the onion” to find who is “actually running these companies.” He called it a “simple but strong” tool, a rare, somewhat unqualified endorsement.

Babin also confirmed that Integrated Money Laundering Investigative Teams (IMLITs), created roughly five years ago to target professional money launderers and enablers, have had success. He cited Project Collectif, a major case that exposed a transnational professional laundering network, as a product of that model.

But even here, the liberal members’ questions read more like prompts for validation than serious scrutiny. The tougher lines of inquiry came from elsewhere.

Bloc raises KPMG scandal and secret CRA deals

Bloc Québécois MP Jean-Denis Garon used his time to drag a politically inconvenient file back into the spotlight: the KPMG tax haven scandal.

He reminded the witnesses that KPMG had been associated with an “aggressive” tax scheme in the early 2000s, one that triggered criminal accusations in both the United States and Canada. Canadians later learned, he said, that the CRA had struck a secret agreement with the accounting giant, an arrangement that seemed to blunt accountability for those involved.

When the Revenue Minister was previously called to explain herself, Garon recalled, she essentially told MPs that if they didn’t like it, they should “go and become a police officer.”

Garon put the issue squarely to the RCMP: if the Minister of Revenue actually used her full investigative powers under the law, would that make law enforcement’s work easier? And when there are criminal proceedings in the United States at the same time Canada is quietly entering into a confidential deal on a related matter, does that interfere with Canadian criminal investigations?

Saghbini refused to engage on the specifics. He repeatedly emphasized that tax evasion investigations are CRA’s domain, that the agency “does their independent investigation,” and that the RCMP becomes involved when CRA “find[s] that there is criminality” and chooses to refer a file.

Garon pressed the point: if CRA has information suggesting possible criminal behavior but “for some reason decides not to send the file over,” can the RCMP investigate?

Technically, Saghbini said, the RCMP can launch a parallel investigation if it “see[s] there’s criminality,” but he then admitted a hard limit: they “need the information that the CRA would be in a position to provide.” They cannot force CRA to share, and there may be situations where the tax agency is unable to pass along information because of how it was obtained or from whom.

Translated out of bureaucratic language, Garon exposed an uncomfortable fact: the police are structurally dependent on a separate agency — itself under political control, to decide when and whether they see key evidence. If the CRA chooses to cut deals, sit on files, or just look the other way, the RCMP is largely in the dark.

Garon also raised concerns about the normalization of stablecoins and official digital currencies, asking whether a government-backed stablecoin would effectively legitimize tools that can be used to move and disguise illicit funds.

Saghbini replied that cryptocurrency use itself is not illegal, “you can go buy a vehicle using a Bitcoin,” and that what matters from a law enforcement perspective is not whether a coin is “stable” or not, but whether the underlying funds come from crime. An official stablecoin, he suggested, would be “situational” in its impact; the police will still chase the criminality behind the transactions.

Only a sliver of fraud ever reaches police

Conservative MP Éric Lefebvre focused on the other side of the financial crime crisis: fraud against ordinary Canadians.

Referencing an RCMP statement from November indicating that only five to six percent of fraud and laundering incidents are actually reported to police, Lefebvre asked how lawmakers could help — especially in the realm of cryptocurrency.

Babin said legislative changes that improve access to banking and crypto transaction data are always being examined. He explained that the RCMP works with federal partners to disrupt the movement of funds even in cases where they cannot pursue a full criminal investigation, using the tools of different departments to “mitigate criminality, prevent criminality, and basically make criminal activity in Canada difficult so that people will either cease or move on.”

He added that cryptocurrency is, contrary to popular belief, traceable and actively traced. The RCMP uses “different technologies” for that work, including exploring “AI options” to map networks behind transactions.

Lefebvre then asked about a new international cybersecurity and fraud information program referenced in a November 6 press release. Saghbini appeared unsure of the specific branding, but described a system run through the federal Cyber Centre that acts as a single intake point where Canadians can report scams. Complaints are then routed to the appropriate police of jurisdiction, a “one stop shop” for victims who would otherwise have no idea where to turn.

Pressed on statistics, Saghbini conceded he did not have numbers but insisted the system is “working well.”

The testimony left an odd picture: a country in which more than ninety percent of fraud and laundering activity fails to reach the police, where a new reporting system is touted as effective without publicly available data, and where the response to sophisticated, globalized crime remains heavily dependent on victims knowing enough and trusting the system enough, to report in the first place.

Liberal MP Kent MacDonald steered the discussion toward technology-driven fraud and sextortion, citing the government’s failed “online harms” legislation and upcoming attempts to reintroduce it.

He asked how the RCMP is adapting to “higher technology fraud.” Saghbini replied that schemes are becoming more “sophisticated” and “obfuscated,” often originating from countries with which Canada has weak law enforcement relationships or “rampant corruption.” In some cases, he suggested, local officials may be complicit.

He stressed the need for public education, especially for seniors and “young folks who are on cell phones” and “just clicking” without realizing what they are doing. With deepfakes, spoofed communications, and international email servers masking locations, victims often do not even know what hit them until their accounts are drained.

MacDonald then raised sextortion of youth, asking whether the “onus” should fall on platform providers when offenders are based in foreign countries such as Nigeria. Saghbini said everyone has “a bit of a role to play,” including service providers, but again highlighted the reality that many criminals operate from jurisdictions where Canadian law enforcement has limited leverage and where corruption makes cooperation unlikely. The RCMP does maintain liaison officers abroad and tries to build relationships, he said, but acknowledged it is “definitely a work in progress” and that some host countries have little incentive to clamp down on criminal enterprises that benefit local elites.

When MacDonald closed by asking what legislative improvements would help financial crime investigations, Babin’s answer was immediate and unvarnished: “Faster access to tax records would be a big help.”

Tax havens “not a crime” by themselves

If there was a single exchange that captured the disconnect between the political rhetoric and the underlying architecture of Canada’s financial regime, it came in the final Conservative round with Calgary MP Pat Kelly.

Kelly began by asking a seemingly simple question: do the criminal organizations the RCMP investigates commonly use tax havens to hide gains from both law enforcement and tax authorities?

“Yes,” Saghbini replied. “They do use tax havens to hide and launder their money. They also… use the cryptocurrency exchanges as well.” Short question, short answer.

Kelly then contrasted this reality with CRA’s earlier admission to the same committee that since 2000 it had successfully concluded just 14 prosecutions for offshore tax avoidance — fewer than three a year across the entire country.

“How many charges have you laid,” Kelly asked the RCMP, “for tax avoidance or fraud, money laundering, all the things under” their mandate?

Saghbini immediately drew a line: “There’s a distinction there between the predicate offenses and the money laundering and then just having your money in a tax haven. Having your money in a tax haven on its own, for us, that’s a CRA mandate. It’s not a crime.”

Asked how often the RCMP lays charges in predicate offense cases, Saghbini said they would have to provide statistics later; the numbers were not available at the table.

On cooperation with CRA, he described a “two way street,” with each side sometimes referring files to the other and sometimes working independently. On cooperation with banks, he said the RCMP has “great cooperation” and pointed to the Integrated Money Laundering Intelligence Partnership. But under questioning, he admitted that information-sharing agreements with financial institutions are still being worked on and “are not executed yet.”

Kelly also raised the long-overdue legislated review of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, a process flagged by a former finance minister but never completed by the current government. Babin answered that reviewing legislation “and keeping up to date is always important,” and emphasized — once again — that in their world, “information sharing is always a key factor to look at.”

Taken together, the exchange painted a picture that no amount of government spin can easily erase: criminals are using tax havens and crypto; the tax agency has barely scratched the surface of offshore prosecutions; the RCMP cannot produce, in real time, numbers on its own charging record; and the laws meant to govern all of this are overdue for review, with information-sharing still hamstrung by silos and legal barriers.

“Cat and mouse” with criminals, and a system that moves “slowly”

In a final short round, Bloc MP Garon returned to the question of resources, noting that the government’s newly announced anti-fraud and financial crime infrastructure looked suspiciously like a reshuffling of existing bureaucracies rather than a serious investment.

Are we, he asked, one of the countries that truly funds police and compliance agencies well, or should Canada be investing “a good deal more” given the growing complexity of financial crime?

Saghbini was careful. He said the RCMP is “continually looking” at where resources are placed and that financial crime units are, in his view, “adequately staffed” for what they are doing today. Pressed more directly on whether the RCMP lacks resources to fully fulfill its mission, he conceded that “any time we have more resources… you can always do more with more,” before reiterating that they currently have enough to “adequately do what we’re doing today.”

He acknowledged, however, that there is an ongoing need to acquire new technologies for cryptocurrency tracing and analytics, describing the struggle with criminals as “almost like a cat and mouse game.”

Cobina closed the Conservative questioning by returning to the heart of public frustration: that highly profitable financial crime and aggressive tax avoidance can leave “bad actors” with little more than a fine a mere “cost of doing business.”

“How do we hold these bad actors accountable?” she asked.

Saghbini insisted that the RCMP takes all complaints “very, very seriously,” investigates them to the “fullest capability,” and does lay charges. But again, he stressed that “what happens later in terms of the court process, in terms of… sentencing, that’s outside our scope.”

The committee has asked the RCMP to submit statistics on investigations and charges. Whether those numbers ever become part of the public conversation and whether they match the scale of the problem acknowledged in this hearing remains to be seen.

What is clear is that Canada’s own top financial crime officials have now said, under oath, that organized criminals use tax havens, shell structures, professional enablers, and digital assets to move and hide money; that only a tiny fraction of fraud ever makes it to police; that information sharing between key agencies is limited by law and bureaucracy; and that the country’s main anti-money laundering law and enforcement tools are lagging behind.

In response, the government boasts of new agencies, strategies, and “whole-of-government” frameworks. But stripped of the jargon and the press releases, the testimony at this committee left a simpler, starker reality: a system where criminals move fast, technology moves faster, and the institutions meant to defend the public are still trying to find their footing while their political masters insist everything is under control.

Final Thoughts

Well, if there’s one thing this committee hearing made crystal clear, it’s that the Liberal government’s wheel is as greasy as ever and the biggest puddle of oil might just be coming from the Prime Minister’s own office.

With Mark Carney now wearing the crown, it’s no surprise that tax havens are being talked about with one hand while quietly enabled with the other. Carney’s own storied relationship with offshore finance, global banking elites, and cozy tax shelters makes him the absolute worst candidate to lead a crackdown. But of course, that’s exactly why he’s there.

We heard it from the RCMP themselves: financial crime is exploding, prosecutions are rare, enforcement is weak, and the bureaucrats can’t or won’t even tell us how often they actually charge anyone. Meanwhile, the Liberals roll out shiny new agencies, registries, and “whole-of-government” strategies that change everything except the results.

So as the swamp bubbles and churns in Ottawa, Canadians are right to wonder: Is this system broken… or is it working exactly as designed? Because from where we sit, the only people getting caught are the ones without friends in high places and the greasiest wheel of all just keeps spinning.