Science World is wrapped as a soccer ball ahead of the FIFA World Cup in Vancouver on Sunday. Canada is preparing to hold 13 matches in Toronto and Vancouver.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Canada’s anti-money-laundering watchdog is cautioning companies about an influx of human trafficking associated with major international sporting events such as the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup soccer tournament.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FinTRAC) issued guidance Thursday to help companies identify financial transactions that could be linked to human trafficking, either for forced labour or sexual exploitation, so that they can be reported to the watchdog.
Canada is preparing to hold 13 matches in Toronto and Vancouver as part of the tournament, which kicks off June 11 and will also take place in the United States and Mexico.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) urged financial institutions in and around cities playing host to the tournament to exercise vigilance and report suspicious transactions that could be connected to human trafficking.
Although human trafficking is an ever-present threat in the U.S., the World Cup is expected to draw millions of visitors, and perpetrators of sex or labour trafficking could seek to exploit the surge in economic activity, FinCEN said.
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“Human trafficking is happening in all of these cities every day, right now. So, it’s not as if the World Cup creates the issue, but what it does is it amplifies what’s already happening. You have this influx of visitors that come during the World Cup to all of these host cities, and that leads to an increase in demand for commercial sex,” said Craig Timm, senior director of anti-money laundering at the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists.
“Whenever there’s an increase in demand in the illicit industries, it’s always the bad guys who are first to fill that gap; it’s the criminals who see dollar signs, and so they’re going to bring in their trafficking victims who are forced or coerced, often minors,” he added.
Canada’s anti-money-laundering laws require entities such as financial institutions, real estate and mortgage brokers, and cryptocurrency exchanges to report certain types of transactions to FinTRAC. The centre then analyzes the information and discloses financial intelligence to law-enforcement agencies.
FinTRAC said it disclosed intelligence associated with human trafficking to Canadian law enforcement agencies 316 times in its 2024-25 fiscal year. Those disclosures identified 538 subjects of interest and supported 26 investigations.
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Indicators of human trafficking include payments for online escort advertisements made by a single person on behalf of multiple individuals, or clusters of hotel charges coinciding with frequent late‑night or early‑morning cash withdrawals, FinTRAC said.
Mr. Timm said excessive rideshare charges by the same person can also be indicative.
“Some of these victims are forced to have sex 20 times a day, and so just logistically moving them around or to different sites, you’ve got constant rideshare charges,” he said.
FinTRAC said that a single indicator may not be sufficient on its own to suggest money laundering has occurred.
Law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, including police in Toronto and Vancouver, Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP, are cautioning Canadians to be on the lookout for World Cup-themed scams.
Fraudsters often take advantage of the significant increase in demand for tickets, travel and accommodations created by large-scale events. They peddle everything from fraudulent tickets and counterfeit goods to non-existent flights and short-term rentals, the police agencies said in a news release earlier this year.
“Large-scale events like FIFA World Cup are a magnet for fraudsters,” Sergeant Shiv Gill of the Vancouver Police Department’s Financial Crime Unit said in a statement.
“Please be fraud aware and use only trusted online services; if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is.”