Money service firm held in contempt over frozen funds
The firm also withheld its reports to FINTRAC, Canada’s anti-money laundering watchdog. It argued federal law barred disclosure, an argument the court had rejected twice before. At other points, it said the reports were still being prepared or that the emails could not be found. The judge found its positions unfounded.
Then came the WhatsApp messages. The firm said they were due diligence chats with the pretender bank. The court found the record strongly suggests the number belonged to an Estonian cryptocurrency company owned and controlled by an individual respondent. It concluded the firm tried to pass that company off as the bank.
A late bias bid goes nowhere
Twelve days before the July 7, 2026 hearing, the firm and the individual respondents asked the judge to step aside, arguing her earlier critical findings showed bias. She refused to hear the request because it came too late without a good reason, and said she would have rejected it anyway. Tough past rulings, she noted, are not bias.
At the hearing, the firm’s lawyer accused the companies and their counsel of misleading the court about where the money was. The judge rejected that claim as entirely unfounded. In April, she had already ordered the firm to pay $185,000 in costs at a higher-than-usual rate.
To clear the contempt, the firm must give the payment firm’s special administrator a binding instruction to send the funds to the court, with the other side copied. On that March email, the judge was direct: “Certainly, one would expect a compliance officer of a registered money service business to understand this distinction.”
