Canada

The head of Canada’s anti-money-laundering (AML) watchdog is stepping down as Ottawa overhauls its approach to fighting financial crime and braces for the results of an international audit of its controls.

Canada is moving to create a powerful new law enforcement agency dedicated to investigating and prosecuting financial crime, a step that places Ottawa on a sharply different course from Washington, where the Trump administration has scaled back federal fraud enforcement.

Canada’s financial intelligence agency has issued a bulletin warning banks and other institutions to be on alert for money laundering linked to an escalating extortion campaign targeting South Asian diaspora communities, particularly in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario.

Canadian penny stock trader John Babikian, once dubbed the “Wolf of Montreal,” obtained a new legal identity, secured residency in Latvia, and bought a luxury apartment in Dubai after disappearing from public view following a U.S. securities settlement.

Western governments marked the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with new measures targeting the Kremlin’s revenue streams and enabling networks, despite stalled efforts by the EU to approve a broad sanctions package.

Canada will launch a new federal financial-crimes agency and change banking laws to clamp down on online fraud and other scams, the country’s Department of Finance announced on Monday.