Canada’s financial intelligence agency FINTRAC has warned that online gambling platforms may be being used to launder money from fentanyl dealing and production.

In its latest operational alert, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada wrote that suspicious transaction reports found that known fentanyl traffickers frequently sent funds received from email money transfers to gambling sites and received payments in return from associated payment processors based in Canada. as well as Malta and the United Kingdom.

“It is suspected that individuals are depositing and withdrawing funds at online casinos, using these platforms to disguise proceeds from fentanyl and opioid trafficking as wagers and winnings from online gambling,” noted the alert.

FINTRAC acts as a financial watchdog by scouring millions of data points to identify cash that is suspected to be linked to money laundering and terrorism. It reports findings to authorities including the RCMP police service.

Regarding this particular alert, it analyzed around 5,000 suspicious transaction reports related to fentanyl and synthetic opioids filed between 2020 and 2023 and found that “threat actors are also using darknet marketplaces and virtual currencies to distribute and facilitate payments for fentanyl and other illegal synthetic opioids on an international scale, among other traditional methods.”

Fintrac says that in one case, an individual received hundreds of “high-value” e-transfers from a payment processor known to work in the online gambling sector. The transactions were considered suspicious due to the client’s tendency to deal with people linked to fentanyl trafficking, the alert said.

Under its “general money laundering indicators,” FINTRAC notes that a client making high-volume or frequent purchases from a personal account to online gambling platforms and subsequently receiving funds into the same account from payment processors associated with online gambling platforms is “an unusual pattern” that warrants close attention.