Last week, a Global News investigation uncovered that roughly 450 individuals with various roles inside Hamas have ties to Canada. These include Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and others with relatives or associates here. CSIS did not confirm if these individuals are currently under scrutiny. Global reported the agency “was investigating Canadians in Middle East terror groups, but declined to elaborate.”
For years, Hamas has exploited Canada’s poorly regulated financial and immigration systems with almost astonishing ease to wash money and move it across borders.
Among them is a dual Canadian-Lebanese national, Usama Ali, who has allegedly sat on Hamas’s powerful Shura Council since 2019 — the body that selects the terror group’s leadership and shapes its strategy. Ali is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury and is reported to also head Hamas’s Turkey-based Investment Office, managing an estimated $500 million in assets through real estate and construction companies.
Another individual, Omar Alkassab, arrived in Winnipeg as a refugee in 2016, as part of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resettlement program for over 100,000 Syrians escaping civil war in their homeland. According to intelligence sources, he has ties to Hamas’s money-moving operations, including a cryptocurrency account used to channel funds into Gaza.
The exposé yet again confirms a long-running trend: Canada remains one of the most vulnerable western jurisdictions for infiltration by Hamas-linked operatives, and the aftermath of October 7 has deepened the country’s exposure.
For years, Hamas has exploited Canada’s poorly regulated financial and immigration systems with almost astonishing ease to wash money and move it across borders. Canadian nationals and underground currency exchanges are known to have laundered funds for the group. Hamas also channels donations from sympathetic charities through cash couriers, front companies, bank transfers, hawala networks, and mainstream money transfer services. In 2014, the Harper government listed the Muslim charity IRFAN-Canada as a terrorist entity for funnelling over $14.6 million in support for Hamas.
Since the October 7 attacks, Hamas has taken advantage of compliance loopholes to fundraise through recognized and emerging online financial platforms.
These vulnerabilities were also laid out starkly in the federal government’s August release of its 2025 Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risks in Canada — in what was an unconvincing review of Canada’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime. The report noted that Hamas has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Tether which are integral to its financing strategy. It further added that the terror group uses online platforms and social media to solicit and move funds to bypass conventional scrutiny.
The structural problems in Canada’s financial systems are not abstract. The U.S. Justice Department’s historic $3-billion fine against TD Bank — the largest fine ever imposed under the Bank Secrecy Act — was a blunt warning about the systemic failures in Canada’s financial oversight. As Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Wally Adeyemo put it, “From fentanyl and narcotics trafficking, to terrorist financing and human trafficking, TD Bank’s chronic failures provided fertile ground for illicit activity to penetrate our financial system.”
Hamas and its ideological progenitor, the Muslim Brotherhood, have spent decades cultivating networks across western democracies.
The Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada estimates that between $45 and $113 billion are laundered through the country every year — an astonishing figure that indicates Canada’s significance as a financial artery for international criminal and terrorist networks.
None of this should surprise anyone familiar with Canada’s history as a destination of choice for terrorist groups seeking to raise funds. As far back as 1998, former CSIS director Ward Elcock cautioned Parliament that the country risked becoming “an unofficial state sponsor of terrorism” through inaction. His words have proved prophetic.
However, this is not merely a Canadian issue. Hamas and its ideological progenitor, the Muslim Brotherhood, have spent decades cultivating networks across western democracies, exploiting charitable sectors, legal systems, immigration frameworks, and political sensitivities. A series of international cases that have come to light this month alone illustrates how widespread and deep-seated this threat ecosystem has become.
Germany arrested a fifth suspect tied to a Hamas cell plotting attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe. In Turkey, a Brotherhood-founded charity reportedly siphoned off $500 million raised in the name of humanitarian aid for Gaza. The Australian government quietly handed $27 million to an Islamic organization whose leader had urged Muslims to wage jihad and fund fighters against Israel. In Minnesota, massive welfare fraud committed by the local Somali community, allegedly redirected millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to the terror group Al-Shabaab, which has historical ties to the Brotherhood. Swedish journalists exposed a network of Brotherhood-linked individuals who stole more than $100 million through private schools, with one former MP diverting money to Islamist-aligned operations in his native Somalia and even sex clubs in Thailand.
These examples reveal a global Islamist financial ecosystem that sees Western democracies as fertile terrain. Canada, unfortunately, is among the most permissive environments of all. Despite repeated security warnings, the federal government remains reluctant to tackle the Islamist extremism and financial crime networks operating within its borders. Fear of political backlash continue to paralyze policymakers at a time when institutional reforms are needed most.
The Global News report demonstrates how dangerous this paralysis has become. By allowing Hamas-linked individuals to enter, reside, or operate in Canada, the Carney government is not merely endangering domestic security. It is also undermining international diplomatic efforts to stabilize the Middle East and weakening the very global sanctions regimes it claims to support.
The Carney government must understand that inaction is complicity. Hamas has treated Canada as a permissive safe haven for far too long.
Canada must fast-track long-pending reforms. Parliament should strengthen immigration screening, bar entry or residency for Hamas-linked individuals, enforce anti-terror laws with real penalties, expand sanctions coordination with allies, and modernize the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to match the realities of digital finance. Charities and NGOs operating in conflict zones require far greater scrutiny. A full audit of asylum, refugee, and citizenship cases from the past decade must be conducted to identify any fraud or irregularities, and denaturalization and deportation measures should be enforced wherever the law permits.
This latest revelation ought to jolt Ottawa out of its reflexive complacency on national security. The Carney government must understand that inaction is complicity. Hamas has treated Canada as a permissive safe haven for far too long. Whether Ottawa takes the terror group seriously will define the country’s credibility and safety for years to come.
Editor’s note: CSIS has not confirmed whether any of the 450 people within Hamas who have ties to Canada are under scrutiny. An earlier version of this column misstated who was being scrutinized.
Published originally on November 25, 2025.
