Evidence of meeting #145 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was enforcement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Yes, I'm very proud of that.
4:20 p.m.
Jim Eglinski Yellowhead, CPC
You should never say you have never had one; you better hope you never have one.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
I said we never did. I'm not projecting; it's factual.
4:20 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
I would like to follow through with what my colleague was dealing with here a little earlier. You were talking about your partnership with the different organizations—financial entities, accountants, the RCMP, and stuff like that. The banks are supposed to report unusual transactions to you. You're saying you're dealing with roughly 25 million a year.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
That's all reports, all told, and 19 million of those would be electronic funds transfers in or out of Canada.
4:20 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
It concerns me. Are the banks compelled to tell you—and I believe that's what you've told us—if there are unusual transactions going on involving larger amounts over $10,000? Are they regulated to tell the local police authorities or is it only limited to your organization?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
No. They're obliged by law to report those transactions to us. They can certainly adopt their own—
4:20 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
I just want to give you a scenario, and I'll use Julie, because she used me.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
Julie gets stung by some foreign entity over the computer and she sends $300,000 to them. The bank lets you know and you look at it. If you think it's fraudulent, which it is, you let the RCMP know. Is there any chance of any repercussions for the criminal from outside of Canada, and is there absolutely any chance for Ms. Dabrusin to get her money back?
Can you tell me of any cases in which the money has been returned?
4:25 p.m.
Assistant Director, Intelligence Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
We work very closely with intelligence agencies around the world to continue to track the money in cases such as this, as does law enforcement.
We don't enforce the law, so as you say, in situations in which money goes offshore, does the investigation continue from an intelligence standpoint? Yes.
In terms of the questions about recovery of the money and prosecution, those would be best answered by law enforcement.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
You're saying it would be an outside agency that would do that.
4:25 p.m.
Assistant Director, Intelligence Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Well, if it's a foreign jurisdiction you would get—
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
Once the money has gone out of Canada, realistically the probability of getting it back into our country is probably zilch, right?
4:25 p.m.
Assistant Director, Intelligence Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Efforts are made by law enforcement in those situations.
4:25 p.m.
Yellowhead, CPC
I had an alarming situation happen between Christmas and the new year in a scenario exactly like the one I was talking about. A senior in my riding was defrauded. His wife found out about it and she contacted the local RCMP who said, “We have no way of returning that money to you. We cannot handle the investigation. There is no probability of your ever getting it back. Contact your member of Parliament and scream and holler. Hopefully he can do something.” So here I am, throwing it back publicly.
We need to address these situations, and I am just trying to get an honest answer. Are we going to be able to accomplish anything with all our different programs—your program and the support agencies that you rely on to give you the information? The banks didn't help. They sent the cheque or the draft over, and it's almost impossible to clean it up after the fact. That's what my concern is. We need to stop them before it's after the fact, and we need to have some way of alerting ourselves. Is there any way of alerting ourselves to these fraudulent people from overseas coming out with these programs and catching gullible persons?
4:25 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
It's very difficult, in part, when we talk about these types of scams. If the person, Julie, willingly sends the money, it's hard to indicate whether it is a fraud if you're the banker and Julie walks in and says, “Listen, I really want to do this and this is what I want to do.”
We do work with banks and we do a lot of work with other reporting entities to make sure we have indicators that we can develop with them so they can ask the right questions. But if Julie is answering those questions in a certain way, I don't know that Julie would enjoy the bank stopping her from transferring the money if she really wanted to do it.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Maybe this is a question more for the RCMP than for you, but if a Canadian company has contracted out to a call centre or a business in another country to conduct business for them and then fraud occurs, under whose laws does that fall? Is that Canadian law? For example, if RBC is using a company in India to do calls and there is something fraudulent or a security breach, whose law does that fall under? Do you know?
4:25 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
No. I think you're correct in that it would be better asked of our RCMP friends or maybe our Justice lawyers. I'm not sure.
January 28th, 2019 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Okay.
Similar to my colleague's question, over the holidays I heard about a woman in Milton who was in a similar situation, but it was a much larger amount of money, though. They were all below $10,000—it was a romance scam—so it didn't trigger anything anywhere along the way.
Following up on what Sven was saying, is that number too high? If people are being asked to send $5,000 and then $7,000, it's not triggering anything at the bank because they are answering in a correct manner. Would it be triggered if that amount were lower?
4:30 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
If it were lower, if the threshold were $1,000, we would see every transaction in or out of Canada that was worth $1,000.
