As investigations at the Calgary Police Service dismantled a sprawling steroid trafficking network, the challenge was not just stopping the flow of drugs, but untangling the financial web behind it.
In modern-day crime, proceeds are no longer just cash-in-hand.
In this case, profits from the trade in Canada were funnelled through almost 150 bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, shell companies, and property deals – at risk of vanishing into the global financial system.
To highlight the scale of the issue, the illegal steroid market is estimated to be worth more than $2bn annually.
Technology as an investigator
What helped break open this case was not only the determination of investigators, but also an investigative toolkit developed in Nottingham, UK.
Altia’s Financial Investigation Toolkit (FIT) enabled police to recover more than $8m CAD in laundered assets, including jewellery, cash and real estate.
As a result, four individuals were arrested and charged with multiple offences, from conspiracy to money laundering.
“The toolkit is essentially software split into two core areas,” explains Toby Langston, Altia’s vice-president for Canada and a former detective constable with the Metropolitan Police in London.
“The first is about OCR (optical character recognition) – similar to when your iPhone scans a credit card. Our software does that for bank statements and large datasets, which would otherwise take investigators month to process.”
“The second part works with Excel, providing investigators with a starter pack of tools to trace money, track crypto, and follow transactions.”
Essentially, used together, the system allows financial investigators to import thousands of bank statements into Excel within minutes and apply predefined rules to uncover suspicious patterns.- tracking money across accounts, companies, and cryptocurrency.
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“Without automation, investigators can spend months going through data,” says Langston. “The toolkit frees officers from repetitive tasks so they can focus on analysis – the part that solves cases and delivers answers to victims.”
Calgary Police Service has been using Altia’s technology for more than five years, particularly within its anti-money laundering and forfeiture team.
The ability to seize illicit funds and reinvest them into victims, community projects, or police resources was one of the key attractions, says Langston, noting that Canada’s legal system shares similarities with the UK’s around asset forfeiture.
Global crypto crime
The worldwide scale of financial crime is forcing police forces globally to adopt new tools.
Industry data highlights the stakes of money laundering through modern technology: illicit cryptocurrency transactions hit $24.4 billion in 2024, a rise from $17.7 billion the year before (although most were driven by scams and ransomware attacks).
“Cryptocurrencies, hidden networks of wallets — all of this globalises fraud and makes it easier to move money without being traced,” Langston adds. “That’s why tools like ours are needed.”
As crime globalises with the use of digital technologies, so too do the tools used to tackle it.
Although Altia began by supplying law enforcement in the UK, its tools are now used in Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries with similar legal frameworks.
Geoff McLaughlin, a detective at Calgary Police Service, says the toolkit has improved workflows.
“By using Altia’s Financial Investigation Toolkit, we’ve been able to significantly reduce manual data entry and conduct analysis rapidly with confidence, knowing it meets evidential standards. It’s a trustworthy and valuable tool in a rapidly changing space.”
For Calgary police, the results have seen $8m CAD recovered from criminal networks, reinvested back into communities and policing.
“Financial crime knows no borders, therefore neither should the technology we use to combat it,” says Rob Sinclair, Altia’s chief executive.
“This case is a clear example of how UK-built software can play a crucial role in complex, high-stakes investigations on a global scale.”
Langston agrees, drawing on his background in law enforcement. “As a former detective, I know you can’t just say, ‘It’ll take too long.’ You have to follow every reasonable line of inquiry, especially in fraud cases where victims may have lost life savings. The toolkit helps make that possible.”
