Canada's failure to take action against cross-border crime jeopardizes U.S. national security

Given the scale of the October 7 attack, Israel plans for a “new security reality” that includes the threat posed to its existence by the Iranian regime and regional proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. are encouraged to do so. Netanyahu's government has also stepped up its counterterrorism financing operations, confiscating large sums of money intended for use by these terrorist organizations.

But while Israel has woken up to that stark reality, the same cannot be said for Canada, which lags significantly in its efforts to curb terrorist financing and transnational crime.

A recent report from the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), a national security non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C., notes that Canada has not only become a “safe haven” for terrorist groups; It paints an alarming picture of Canada's situation. But there is also a lack of political will to tackle transnational organized crime and other foreign influence activities.

The report, which called for “urgent attention and action,” said Canada has become a “money laundering safe haven” for these groups and their criminal networks. The country has also been described as a “prosperous center” where criminals from Iran, Russia, Mexico and China carry out billions of dollars worth of illegal activities, including money laundering and trafficking in drugs, weapons and other contraband. did.

Calvin Christie, a former Canadian intelligence officer and senior partner in the critical risks team who testified at the Cullen Commission inquiry into money laundering in British Columbia, said that since the mid-2000s, foreign funds have been regularly laundered through Canada. He confirmed to me that he had come. Iranian and Chinese criminal networks.

“Every time we saw drug cartel leaders fly into Canada, they were almost exclusively meeting with Middle Eastern individuals that we identified as targets, but in most cases they were Iranian Because they have non-Chinese people in control of the funds.”

Much of this misconduct was exposed during the recent high-profile trial of disgraced Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer Cameron Ortiz and the aforementioned Cullen Commission investigation. These hearings will discuss how Canadians and Canadian-based underground currency exchanges are helping Iran evade sanctions and facilitate the financing of Hezbollah and Hamas' terrorist activities through social media, cryptocurrencies, etc. A number of cases have been brought up that demonstrate this.

These illegal activities in Canada have not gone unnoticed by the United States. David M. Luna, a former U.S. diplomat and executive director of the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), said Canada is being used as a transnational criminal hub for Iranian regime-backed proxies to finance terrorism in the Middle East. He said the United States “remains concerned” about the situation. East and around the world.

“These illegal operations threaten the national security of the United States through the potential for direct attacks against American personnel in our country or the potential for targeting U.S. forces in the Middle East, as we are witnessing today in Israel, Yemen, and Iraq. It may have a negative impact.”

The events of October 7th are a wake-up call not only for Israel but also for Western countries. Last month alone, several attacks were thwarted across Europe. British police made more terrorist arrests in the two months to October 7th than in all of 2022. Already wary of the Hezbollah threat in Latin America, the United States remains on high alert to prevent the infiltration of Islamic extremists from its southern border. Recent terrorist arrests in Calgary and Ottawa demonstrate that Canada is similarly vulnerable to these threats.

The United States and Britain announced today that they have targeted a cross-border assassination network in Iran with ties to Canada. This is in addition to last week's major announcements that the US, UK and Australia have sanctioned a Hamas-linked financial network linked to Chinese bank accounts and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) funds, citing political inertia in Ottawa. The funding of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has once again been proven. Incompetence in the face of escalating terrorist threats has not only undermined Canada's standing as a serious country, but has also caused Five Eyes allies to exclude Canada from high-profile initiatives.

Benam Ben Taleb, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research organization based in Washington, D.C., said, “There are countries like Canada that have yet to ban or ban the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) under their terrorism laws. Non-sanctioning countries are likely to be used by the Islamic Republic as jurisdictions for cross-border criminal activity. Coordinating Western targeting of Iran and its terrorist networks is more urgent today than ever. It becomes.”

At a time when global security is threatened like never before by the concentration of multiple Islamist terrorist threat vectors, the Trudeau government needs to wake up from its political slumber. Israel learned the hard way on October 7th the dangers of complacency. Therefore, it would be in the United States' best interest to pressure Canada to get its act together while there is still time.

Joe Adam George is a research analyst who writes about foreign policy and national security issues at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a Canadian policy think tank.