Key Takeaways
- ZachXBT said on June 13 that he is declining all requests from Canadian fraud victims, citing weak enforcement and seizures.
- He called Toronto a top 5 global cybercrime hub and Canada’s agencies possibly worse than India or Nigeria.
- Without faster court action, ZachXBT argues, onchain evidence stalls, leaving Canadian victims little path to recovery.
Toronto Named a Top Cybercrime Hub
ZachXBT made the comments in a series of posts on June 13, arguing that Canadian authorities routinely fail to prosecute offenders or seize frozen assets for victims of fraud, and that domestic media avoid the subject, adding:
“Canadian mainstream media would not dare to report about how Toronto has grown into a top 5 hub globally for cybercriminals, and that law enforcement fails to prosecute or seize frozen assets for its victims of fraud. I had to start declining all victims from Canada. Its government agencies may be more negligent than either India or Nigeria.”
ZachXBT cited two prominent cases to support the claim. First, he said Canadian law enforcement ignored a report about a threat actor running phishing scams who now ransoms companies for millions of dollars. Second, he described an instance in which authorities did not act on evidence he provided, adding:
“It gets worse because the evidence I have for EX 1 is exact same type of evidence used to successfully prosecute threat actors in two other jurisdictions”
He did not name the specific threat actors in his posts, citing the sensitivity of ongoing matters, but noted the gap as one of will and capacity rather than evidence. The argument is that even when investigators hand authorities court-ready material, some countries lack the follow-through to act on it.
A Pattern of Naming Negligent Gatekeepers
The remarks fit a wider campaign, given ZachXBT has built a reputation for pressing exchanges, law firms, and regulators he accuses of shielding or ignoring illicit funds. Just last month, Bitcoin.com News reported on his investigation accusing Kucoin of shielding $13 million in stolen crypto from German investigators, and on his exposure of a U.S. law firm’s $71 million grab of frozen funds tied to the North Korean Lazarus Group. He has also published leaked data on a North Korean payment pipeline that moved crypto into fiat currency.
His Canada comments add a jurisdictional angle to that body of work since, in crypto fraud, stolen funds move across borders in minutes, and victims depend on fast asset freezes and coordinated seizures to recover anything at all. When a jurisdiction is slow or unwilling to prosecute, ZachXBT argued, the onchain trail leads nowhere, even when it is crystal clear.
That said, Canada has logged a string of high-profile cybercrime cases recently, with the Toronto police recently announcing what they called unprecedented arrests in an SMS blaster fraud investigation, the first known use of the device-spoofing technology in the country. Similarly, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has also touted takedowns of prolific scam operations with thousands of victims.
Expectantly, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s National Cyber Threat Assessment for 2025-2026 has flagged fraud and ransomware as escalating threats to Canadians.
What the Standoff Signals
If a leading independent investigator is declining Canadian cases because he sees little chance of action, people defrauded there may have fewer avenues to recover funds (even when the blockchain evidence is unambiguous). Blockchain analysis can identify suspects and trace stolen money with unusual precision, but recovery still depends on courts, police, and asset-freezing powers in the offline world. Without that follow-through, even airtight evidence stalls.
Whether this technique of public pressure prompts a response from Canadian authorities remains to be seen, but it is worth mentioning that ZachXBT has previously used the same tactic (of naming names and publishing evidence) to push exchanges and firms into acting.
