Canada’s federal financial intelligence unit recently announced that it imposed an unprecedented administrative monetary penalty of more than $176 million on Vancouver-based Xeltox Enterprises Ltd, which also operates under the name of Cryptomus. According to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (“FINTRAC”), Xeltox is a money services business that provides virtual currency transactions services. On October 22, 2025, FINTRAC announced that it fined Xeltox for anti-money laundering deficiencies that occurred between July 1, 2024 and July 31, 2024, in breach of 6 administrative violations of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and associated regulations. Among the violations, FINTRAC cited the company’s failure to submit suspicious transactions reports on 1,068 separate occasions for “transactions involving known darknet markets and virtual currency wallets linked to criminal activity, such as trafficking in child sexual abuse material, movement of fraud proceeds, laundering of ransomware payments, and financial flows with reasonable grounds to suspect they were related to sanctions evasion.” FINTRAC also found that the company had inadequate compliance policies and procedures and that its internal controls were unable to properly assess and document the company’s risk of money laundering or terrorist activity financing offenses.
FINTRAC ultimately determined that the $176,960,190 penalty was appropriate based on the nature of the violations and the volume of instances cited. FINTRAC reported that it imposed the fine to address non-compliance within a high-risk sector.
FINTRAC News Release | FINTRAC Public notice of Administrative monetary penalty