Department of Finance Canada outlined new financial-crime measures connected to the federal "follow-the-money" strategy against extortion.
The announcement focused on the use of financial intelligence to support law-enforcement investigations, including work by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. Finance Canada said FINTRAC had engaged with 28 law-enforcement and intelligence units and nearly 200 police investigators across four provinces, including Quebec.
The department also connected the strategy to Budget 2025 funding for the RCMP. That budget announced $1.7 billion to strengthen the RCMP's response to transnational organized crime, financial crimes, money laundering, intelligence, and national-security capacity, including a commitment to hire 1,000 personnel.
Another legislative thread is Bill C-12, which Finance Canada described as proposing stronger anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist-financing supervision, compliance, and enforcement. The department said the bill would increase civil penalties by forty times and criminal fines by ten times their current amount.
The measures point to heavier use of financial intelligence in extortion investigations. For regulated businesses and financial institutions, the source of pressure is clear: AML/ATF reporting, monitoring, and enforcement expectations are being tied more directly to organized-crime and illicit-asset investigations.