OTTAWA – Canada’s financial intelligence agency will report Thursday that extortion is on the rise, with a growing number of those crimes against Canadians of Indian or South Asian descent being committed by criminal organizations with direct ties to that region.
A new National Post report says the number of extortion cases increased more than six-fold in the first four months of 2026, according to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC). According to the agency’s report, more extortion cases have been recorded so far this year than in the previous two years combined, part of a dramatic increase in financial crime in Canada in recent years.
According to the FINTRAC report, the center has referred more than 100 cases of such adulteration to police since the start of the year, with the vast majority of the crimes occurring in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.
Many communications between criminals and victims are threatening calls or encrypted social media messages in which victims receive various threats unless they pay large sums of money. While actual payments often amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars, some targets are told they must pay more than $100,000 or even $1 million.
The 100 cases of distortion involve more than 300 facts and more than 63,000 financial transactions, mostly in connection with money laundering and sometimes even terrorist financing. Victims are often small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in sectors such as retail, transport, construction, real estate and hospitality.
Extortion schemes often involve agents who act as bridges between the criminal organization and the intended victim. Agents are typically between 17 and 28 years old, hold an Indian passport and are registered as foreign students at a community college.
Once a payment has been extorted, the agent often makes deposits at multiple financial institutions or money services companies and then sends money to people or companies in India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, or perhaps Kenya or Portugal.
FINTRAC says its analysis shows that multiple criminal organizations appear to be involved in this wave of extortion, including two well-known rival gangs, the Bishnoi Gang and the Bambiha Gang, both based in northern India.
The two organizations, each founded in the 2010s, are best known for crimes such as extortion and contract killings. Although their reach extends beyond India and Canada, their crimes in this country often target Indo-Canadian companies and individuals.
According to FINTRAC, domestic copycat groups also play a role by attempting to exploit the fear generated by the criminal groups and sometimes falsely claiming to be part of these organizations.
“By tracking the money and leveraging the power of financial intelligence,” Sarah Paquet, executive director of FINTRAC, was quoted as saying in a press release, “we can effectively target, disrupt and dismantle the organized criminal networks that profit from these illegal activities and endanger the security of Canadians.”
This wave of extortion is part of a recent surge in financial crime, driven in part by the proliferation of the digital world, particularly the virtual currency market. FINTRAC reported last fall that the organization easily set a new record for the number of cases it referred to police for possible criminal investigation.
The increase was due to the sharp increase in fraud, cyber ransomware, online child sexual exploitation and a range of other online crimes, which are often directly linked to other financial crimes such as money laundering and terrorist financing.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Center has said Canadians were defrauded of $643 million in online fraud in 2024, almost three times more than four years ago.
According to the federal government, less than 10 percent of these types of fraud are reported to authorities.
Local police forces in larger communities and the federal government have taken action to respond to the increase in online crime. The Liberal government announced late last year that it would create a new financial crimes agency aimed at improving Canada’s ability to combat online fraud, money laundering and other types of fraud.
The fight against such crimes received new impetus at the beginning of the year through changes to the banking law. The new legislation requires banks and other financial institutions to play a larger and more proactive role in detecting and combating various types of fraud.
Many local police forces have also made preventing extortion and other financial crimes a priority in recent years by dedicating resources to new technologies and hiring specialists.
National Post
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