Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Canada's financial intelligence agency warns that illicit cash is being laundered through online gambling sites that provide a variety of ways to disguise shady funds.

In a newly published bulletin, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada highlights the criminal exploitation of legitimate and unlicensed digital wagering operations.

The centre, known as Fintrac, notes the popularity of online gambling grew during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been fuelled by the 2021 legalization of single-event sports betting in Canada.

The RCMP has eased its policy on cannabis use by members, saying simply they must be fit for duty when reporting for work. 

The new substance use policy replaces a 2018 one that required front-line officers and many other employees in "safety-sensitive" positions to refrain from recreational cannabis use for four weeks before duty.

The change, implemented earlier this month, brings the Mounties in line with many other police forces on employee pot use.

Violent extremists who lack the means to carry out an attack in Canada could compensate by perpetrating hoaxes with the help of artificial intelligence, says a newly released analysis.

The May report by the federal Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre, obtained through the Access to Information Act, warns that such visual trickery, known as a deepfake, poses "a persistent threat to public safety."

Canada's financial intelligence agency says it anticipates that criminals will increase their use of cryptocurrency to raise, move and hide funds outside the traditional banking system.

In its latest annual report, released Monday, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada highlights its development of strategic intelligence on the role virtual assets play in money laundering and terrorist financing.

The RCMP has told owners to turn in fully automatic military surplus firearms after hundreds were misidentified and allowed into Canada for commercial sale.

The Mounties say the registrar of firearms immediately froze records relating to the 245 prohibited guns upon discovery of the issue to prevent further sale or transfer of the firearms.

The registrar believes three firearm businesses imported and registered the guns as semi-automatic Tavor X95s that are classified as restricted firearms and can be sold in Canada.

Russian intelligence services and police will help cybercriminals operate with "near impunity" against their targets — including Canadians — in coming months, a new federal report predicts. 

The assessment released Monday says Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, very likely act as cybercrime safe havens from which digital criminals within their borders can operate against western targets. 

Canada's intelligence service warns that technological innovations adopted by municipalities could be exploited by adversaries such as the Chinese government to harvest sensitive data, target diaspora communities and interfere in elections.

A newly released report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service urges policy-makers and the technology industry to consider steps that can be taken to address and ease the emerging security threat before "smart city" platforms are widely adopted.

The RCMP is not investigating any allegations of foreign interference concerning the last general election, the federal deputy minister of public safety told a parliamentary committee Wednesday.

Shawn Tupper was appearing at the committee on procedure and House affairs, which is looking into accusations of Chinese meddling in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

The Liberal government has come under pressure in recent weeks to explain what Canada is doing about accusations of Chinese interference in the elections following leaks to the media from unnamed security sources.

A new academic analysis has identified at least 75 foreign digital operations of a malicious political or industrial nature directed at Canada since 2010 – from attempts to steal COVID-19-related research to the targeting of Uyghur human rights activists.

The report by researchers at the University of Quebec at Montreal’s Observatoire des conflits multidimensionals found cyberespionage accounted for more than half of these episodes.

A federal research unit detected what might be a Chinese Communist Party information operation that aimed to discourage Canadians of Chinese heritage from voting for the Conservatives in the last federal election.

The Sept. 13, 2021, analysis by Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, which tracks foreign interference, says researchers observed Communist Party media accounts on Chinese social media platform Douyin widely sharing a narrative that the Conservatives would all but sever diplomatic relations with Beijing.