Global News

A Toronto currency exchange business helped Iran secretly wire millions of dollars into Canada in violation of sanctions, according to a classified intelligence report that calls the financial transfers a threat to national security.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report obtained by Global News accuses Alireza Onghaei, the investor immigrant behind the company, of “assisting the government of Iran in the clandestine wiring of monies into Canada.”

The money was routed through Dubai in order to “circumvent sanctions,” CSIS wrote in its Dec. 20, 2019, report on Onghaei, the owner of ONG Currency Exchange Inc., on Toronto’s Yonge Street.

Mike Drolet explains what the money may have been used for, and how the company's owner is responding to the claims.