Money Laundering Lawyer in Toronto

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Money laundering under section 462.31 of the Criminal Code reaches far beyond the movie version. An e-transfer moved between accounts, a cash deposit made for a friend, a crypto swap or a car bought in your name for someone else can all become laundering counts once the Crown alleges you dealt with property intending to conceal or convert it, knowing, believing or being reckless as to its criminal origin. Since Parliament amended the section in 2019 and again in 2024, prosecutors have new shortcuts, and laundering for a criminal organization now carries up to 14 years with no summary option. Kazandji Law defends laundering, proceeds-of-crime and forfeiture proceedings across Toronto and the GTA.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

The Offence: What Section 462.31 Actually Prohibits

Section 462.31(1) casts a deliberately wide net. It is an offence to use, transfer the possession of, send or deliver to any person or place, transport, transmit, alter, dispose of or otherwise deal with, in any manner and by any means, any property or any proceeds of property, with intent to conceal or convert that property or those proceeds, knowing or believing that, or being reckless as to whether, all or part of it was obtained or derived, directly or indirectly, from the commission of a designated offence in Canada, or from an act or omission anywhere that would have been a designated offence had it occurred in Canada.

Broken into elements, the Crown must prove three things beyond a reasonable doubt: one of the listed dealings with property or proceeds; a specific intent to conceal or convert; and a guilty state of mind about the property's criminal origin, knowledge, belief or recklessness. Each element is a separate battleground, and the foreign-predicate branch means money connected to conduct abroad can still ground a Toronto charge if that conduct would be an indictable offence here.

The section contains its own carve-out: under s.462.31(3), a peace officer or a person acting under a peace officer's direction does not commit the offence where the acts are done for the purposes of an investigation or otherwise in the execution of duties, the provision that shelters undercover money-movement operations.

What Counts as Proceeds of Crime, and a Designated Offence

Part XII.2 of the Criminal Code supplies the definitions that give s.462.31 its reach. Under s.462.3, proceeds of crime means any property, benefit or advantage, within or outside Canada, obtained or derived directly or indirectly from the commission of a designated offence, or from an act or omission anywhere that would have been a designated offence if it had occurred in Canada.

A designated offence, in turn, is essentially any offence that may be prosecuted as an indictable offence under the Criminal Code or any other federal Act (apart from a short list excluded by regulation), together with conspiracies, attempts, counselling and being an accessory after the fact in relation to one. In other words, the predicate is not limited to drug trafficking or organized crime: fraud over $5,000, theft, tax offences under federal statutes and virtually any other indictable federal offence can supply the criminal origin the Crown needs.

Two features of these definitions deserve emphasis. First, the words directly or indirectly mean the Crown can trace value through transformations, cash converted to a bank balance, a balance converted to a vehicle, and still call the end product proceeds. Second, the foreign-predicate branch means the underlying crime never needs to have touched Canada; what matters is whether the conduct would have been an indictable offence here.

The 2024 Amendments: Four Changes Toronto Residents Should Know

Parliament reworked s.462.31 in 2024 (S.C. 2024, c. 15 and c. 17), repealing the former subsections (1.1) to (1.3) and rebuilding the offence's punishment and proof structure. Four changes matter most in practice:

• Criminal-organization laundering: s.462.31(2.1). Laundering committed for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization is now a straight indictable offence with a maximum of 14 years, there is no summary conviction option at all.
• No specific predicate required: s.462.31(2.2). The prosecutor does not have to prove that the accused knew, believed or was reckless as to the specific nature of the designated offence the money came from. It is enough that the accused knew, believed or was reckless that it came from some designated offence.
• The markedly-unusual-dealings inference: s.462.31(2.3). A court may infer the required knowledge, belief or recklessness where the manner in which the accused dealt with the property is markedly unusual, or the dealings are inconsistent with lawful activities typical of the sector in which they took place, including business activities.
• The predicate-charge exception: s.462.31(2.4). The two shortcuts above do not apply where the accused is also charged with the designated offence itself. Charging decisions therefore shape what the Crown must prove.

The practical effect is that the structure of your financial activity, cash intensity, third-party accounts, rapid conversions, can itself become the Crown's mental-element evidence. Answering that case often means explaining, with records and context, why the dealings made lawful sense in your industry and circumstances.

Laundering vs Possession of Proceeds: s.462.31 vs s.354

Money laundering has a quieter sibling: possession of property obtained by crime. Under s.354, it is an offence to possess any property, thing or proceeds knowing that all or part was obtained or derived from an indictable offence in Canada, or from an act anywhere that would have been indictable here. The two offences are routinely confused, and the differences drive both charge selection and defence strategy.

Offence	Section	Key mental element	Procedure and maximum
Laundering proceeds of crime	s.462.31(2)	Intent to conceal or convert, plus knowledge, belief or recklessness as to criminal origin	Hybrid; 10 years on indictment
Laundering for a criminal organization	s.462.31(2.1)	Same, committed for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization	Indictable only; 14 years
Possession of property obtained by crime, over $5,000	s.354, s.355(a)	Knowledge that the property was derived from an indictable offence	Hybrid; 10 years on indictment
Possession, $5,000 or under	s.354, s.355(b)	Same	Hybrid; 2 years on indictment, or summary conviction

Section 354 also carries a trap for vehicle cases: under s.354(2), a wholly or partially obliterated vehicle identification number is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof that the vehicle was obtained by crime.

Daoust: the buyer is not the launderer

The Supreme Court drew the boundary between the two offences in R. v. Daoust, 2004 SCC 6. Pawnshop operators had bought goods an undercover officer described as stolen; they were prosecuted for laundering. The Court held the convictions could not stand and dismissed the Crown's appeal. The English catch-all phrase, or otherwise deals with, had to yield to the narrower French text under the shared-meaning rule: the actus reus of s.462.31 is limited to the listed acts, and those acts target the person who transfers or divests property to conceal or convert it. The person who merely buys or receives the property is not, by that act alone, a launderer. Receivers belong under s.354 possession, a materially different offence, and even a transferor is only guilty with the added intent to conceal or convert.

Freezing, Seizure and Restraint Before Trial

In proceeds cases, the financial consequences usually start long before a verdict. Part XII.2 gives the Attorney General two powerful pre-trial tools:

• Special search warrants: s.462.32. A judge, on the Attorney General's application, which may be made ex parte and in writing, can issue a warrant authorizing the search for and seizure of property where there are reasonable grounds to believe it is proceeds of crime, on any conditions the judge considers advisable.
• Restraint orders: s.462.33. On a similar ex parte application, a judge satisfied there are reasonable grounds may prohibit any person from disposing of or otherwise dealing with the property. A restraint order is effective throughout Canada, and the regime can reach property located outside the country.

In practice this is how most clients first learn they are targets: a bank account stops working, a mortgage advance is blocked, or a home becomes restrained. These orders are obtained without notice, on paper, and on a reasonable-grounds standard, far below proof of guilt. Responding through counsel matters, because dealings with restrained property can generate fresh allegations, and because the grounds behind the order are themselves a proper target for challenge.

Forfeiture on Conviction, Fines in Lieu and the Default Ladder

Conviction is only half the exposure in a proceeds case. Section 462.37 then decides what happens to the money, and it can decide what happens to your liberty as well.

Mandatory forfeiture: s.462.37(1). On conviction, or a discharge under s.730, for a designated offence, the court shall order forfeiture of any property the Crown proves, on a balance of probabilities, to be proceeds of crime obtained through that offence.

Discretionary forfeiture: s.462.37(2). Even where the property is not linked to the particular offence of conviction, the court may still order forfeiture if satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the property is proceeds of crime.

Extended forfeiture: s.462.37(2.01) to (2.07). For a defined list, criminal-organization offences punishable by five years or more, certain drug offences under sections 5 to 7 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act prosecuted by indictment, listed Cannabis Act offences, and trafficking in persons under ss.279.01 to 279.03, the court can forfeit property identified by the Attorney General where either the offender engaged in a pattern of criminal activity within the previous ten years, or the offender's legitimate income cannot reasonably account for the property. The offender can rebut the case on a balance of probabilities, and the court retains an interests-of-justice discretion. The regime can also reach property outside Canada (2.1).

Fine instead of forfeiture: s.462.37(3) and (4). Where the property itself cannot be forfeited, it cannot be located despite due diligence, was transferred to a third party, sits outside Canada, has substantially diminished in value, or has been commingled with other property that cannot practicably be divided, the court may impose a fine equal to the value of the property. Default of payment triggers mandatory consecutive imprisonment on a ladder that runs from up to six months where the fine is $10,000 or less, up to five to ten years where the fine exceeds $1 million, and no fine-option program can discharge it (5).

The Supreme Court has confirmed how unforgiving this scheme is. In R. v. Lavigne, 2006 SCC 10, it explained that the fine in lieu exists to replace the proceeds of crime, not to punish, forfeiture ensures criminally tainted property is not left in, or returned to, the wrong hands, because crime must not pay. And in R. v. Vallières, 2022 SCC 10, the stolen maple syrup case, it held the fine must in principle equal the value of the property that passed through the offender's possession or control, not the offender's profit: on the facts, roughly $10 million in resale value (less restitution), not the $1 million the offender personally made. Courts have no discretion to cap the fine at profit. For anyone who moved money for a cut, the arithmetic is sobering: liability tracks what flowed through your hands, not what stuck to them.

Knowledge, Wilful Blindness and Recklessness

Most contested laundering trials are fought over the mental element, and three doctrines dominate.

Knowledge and belief are the classic routes: the Crown proves, usually by circumstantial evidence, that the accused actually knew or believed the property was criminally derived.

Wilful blindness substitutes for knowledge. As the Supreme Court put it in R. v. Briscoe, 2010 SCC 13, a decision about the doctrine's general operation, not a laundering case, a person who actually suspects the truth and deliberately chooses not to inquire because they prefer not to know is treated in law as if they knew. The doctrine has deep roots in Sansregret v. The Queen, [1985] 1 S.C.R. 570, and it applies wherever knowledge is an element of an offence, including s.462.31.

Recklessness, added to the section in 2019, reaches further still: proceeding with a transaction in the face of a real risk that the funds are criminal can now satisfy the mental element, even without suspicion ripening into deliberate ignorance. Layer on the s.462.31(2.3) inference from markedly unusual dealings, and the practical message is stark: in a prosecution, the sentence that begins with. I never asked where the money came from, is rarely a defence and often the Crown's best exhibit. The defence answer is built from the other direction: the inquiries you did make, the documents you kept, the lawful explanation for the source of the funds, and dealings that look normal for your sector once someone bothers to explain the sector.

How Toronto Laundering Cases Start: FINTRAC, Banks and TPS

Few laundering files begin with a complaint. They begin with paperwork. FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, is Canada's financial intelligence unit and its anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing supervisor under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. Banks, money-services businesses and other reporting entities must file suspicious-transaction and other prescribed reports, and FINTRAC analyzes them and discloses actionable financial intelligence to police and national-security agencies.

Two things follow for anyone under investigation. First, a FINTRAC report is intelligence, not an accusation, it is neither a charge nor evidence of guilt. Second, by the time police act on that intelligence, they usually hold months of account records; the investigation is often mature before you hear a word about it.

The transaction patterns that attract this scrutiny recur: third-party or money-mule accounts receiving and forwarding funds for a commission; funnel-style cash deposits made across different branches into one account; rapid conversion of funds into cryptocurrency, including through swap services and mixers; cash-intensive businesses whose banking does not match any visible trade; and relay wires that move value through a chain of accounts with no commercial logic.

In Toronto, the police end of this pipeline is typically the Toronto Police Service Financial Crimes unit, which investigates multi-jurisdictional fraud involving the manufacturing, forgery and distribution of payment cards, currency, cheques and other valuable instruments. Its Project Déjà Vu investigation into synthetic-identity credit fraud, a scheme dating to 2016, investigated from October 2022, ended with twelve men arrested on 102 charges that expressly included laundering proceeds of crime alongside fraud, forgery and unauthorized possession of credit card data. Where the identity side of such a file is the concern, see our Toronto identity theft lawyers page.

Who Prosecutes Money Laundering, and Where Your Case Will Be Heard

Prosecution of laundering in Toronto is split between two Crowns. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada facilitates the seizure and forfeiture of proceeds of crime and prosecutes related offences such as money laundering and possession of proceeds, in its own description, usually in cases where the money and property derive from drug offences. Where the alleged predicate is trafficking, the drug case and the money case travel together: see our drug trafficking defence page. Other Criminal Code laundering prosecutions are conducted by Ontario Crown attorneys, and large files are frequently built by joint-force operations combining police services and federal agencies.

The court path is the standard Toronto one: charges commence at the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury Street; substantial proceeds and criminal-organization allegations typically proceed on indictment at the Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Avenue, and remember that s.462.31(2.1) counts are indictable only. All adult Toronto bail hearings, including weekend and statutory-holiday (WASH) court, run through the Toronto Regional Bail Centre at 2201 Finch Avenue West. Expect the money itself to shadow every stage, from restrained accounts at the start to forfeiture argument at the end.

Defences and Collateral Consequences

Because the offence stacks several precise elements, a laundering charge offers the defence multiple independent targets:

• The act was not laundering (Daoust). The actus reus is limited to the listed dealings and targets the transferor side. Merely buying or receiving property, without transferring, sending or converting it to conceal its origin, is not s.462.31 laundering.
• No intent to conceal or convert. The Crown must prove the dealing was done to hide or transform the property, not merely that money moved. Ordinary spending and banking, without a concealment purpose, does not satisfy the section.
• No knowledge, belief or recklessness. A documented, credible lawful source, wages, a sale, a loan, an inheritance, attacks the mental element at its root, as do the inquiries you actually made.
• Rebutting the (2.3) inference. Dealings that look markedly unusual in the abstract often look routine in context; industry practice and records can dismantle the inference before it forms.
• The predicate-charge exception (2.4). Where you are also charged with the designated offence, the Crown loses its (2.2) and (2.3) shortcuts and must prove the full mental element.
• Charter litigation. Special search warrants and restraint orders are obtained ex parte on reasonable grounds; the grounds, the drafting and the execution are all reviewable, and s.8 breaches can lead to exclusion of the financial record on which the case stands.

The collateral stakes run past sentencing: forfeiture and fines in lieu with default imprisonment, and, because laundering is a serious charge, potential immigration consequences for non-citizens and professional-licensing consequences for regulated professionals. Those risks deserve advice specific to your status and profession, early.

Accounts Frozen or Investigators Calling? The First Moves Matter

Laundering investigations surface in unmistakable ways: a bank freezes or closes an account without explanation, a compliance officer starts asking source-of-funds questions, or a financial-crimes detective requests an interview. What you do next shapes the file:

• Do not give an explanation on the spot. The offence turns on intent and on knowledge, belief or recklessness, precisely what an informal interview with a bank investigator or officer is designed to establish. Take names and numbers; let counsel respond.
• Do not move money around the problem. Shuffling funds between accounts or transferring assets to family and friends after questions start can generate fresh laundering counts, breach a restraint order you may not yet know exists, and feed the very s.462.31(2.3) inference the Crown hopes to draw. It can also worsen forfeiture exposure, since property moved to third parties is exactly what the fine-in-lieu power in s.462.37(3) was built for.
• Assemble your source-of-funds record now. Pay statements, invoices, sale agreements, loan documents, exchange records and transfer histories are the raw material of the defence, and they are easier to gather before accounts and platforms lock you out.
• Treat restraint papers as urgent. Special warrants and restraint orders are granted ex parte on a reasonable-grounds standard; the sooner counsel sees the underlying materials, the sooner the grounds can be tested.
• Say nothing to co-targets. Coordinating stories is obstruction territory, and messages about the money routinely become exhibits.

None of this is about hiding anything, it is about making sure the account of your finances that reaches investigators is complete, documented and delivered through counsel rather than improvised at a branch counter.

Why Kazandji Law for a Toronto Money Laundering Charge

Laundering files are records cases: bank statements, wire logs, exchange histories, corporate books. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji defends them the way they are built, line by line, pairing an element-by-element attack on the charge with the forfeiture and restraint litigation that decides what happens to your accounts, your home and your business while the case runs. Explore our full criminal defence practice and our recent case successes.

We act for clients across the GTA from four offices:

• Toronto (head office): 180 John St, Unit 320, minutes from the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury Street and the Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Avenue;
• Thornhill: 7191 Yonge St, Suite 310, serving Markham and York Region;
• North York;
• Oakville.

Toronto Money Laundering Charges: Frequently Asked Questions

This page is general legal information for people facing money laundering and proceeds-of-crime allegations in Ontario. It is not legal advice about any specific case. Criminal Code and PCMLTFA provisions summarized here were reviewed against official federal sources in July 2026 and may change. Contact Kazandji Law for advice tailored to your situation.