The Mounties have charged a former Royal Bank of Canada employee with fraud and identity theft after he allegedly accessed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s banking profile as part of a scheme police believe is linked to organized crime.
Ibrahim El-Hakim, 23, of Ottawa, admitted to the actions in an interview with RBC’s director of security in late June, saying a user on the app Telegram – going by the alias “AI WORLD” – lured him into creating banking profiles, obtaining lines of credit and accessing customer profiles, according to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer’s affidavit seen by Banking Dive.
El-Hakim, who had served as a client adviser for RBC since 2022, was paid C$500 for each completed request, according to the court document. El-Hakim received a total of C$5,000 in his accounts at TD and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, according to the document. But credit-card fraud linked to the case amounts to C$68,500, according to RBC’s investigation.
Much of the illicit activity was caught on camera at the RBC branch near Parliament Hill where El-Hakim worked. The RCMP arrested El-Hakim on July 10 and released him conditionally. He is set to appear in court next week.
“While we cannot comment on specifics of matters before the court, we can share that we independently identified unauthorized system access, took immediate action to engage authorities and the individual named is no longer employed at the bank,” Cynthia Brean, a spokesperson for RBC, said in a statement.
El-Hakim allegedly used the bank's internal IT systems to access personal information without authorization, the RCMP said. The fraud charge stems from sharing the information, according to police.
In addition to counts of fraud and identity theft, El-Hakim faces charges of unauthorized use of a computer and trafficking in identity information, the RCMP confirmed Wednesday.
The alleged scheme didn’t stop at Carney. El-Hakim also allegedly accessed a banking profile belonging to a Justin Trudeau, according to the affidavit. However, the account did not belong to the former prime minister, the RCMP confirmed to the CBC.
The Globe and Mail could not reach El-Hakim for comment. His lawyer, Ronald Guertin, declined to comment to the publication, noting he has not yet received all of the police information regarding the allegations.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office also declined to comment, noting that the RCMP is handling the matter.
The RCMP, meanwhile, said it does not believe there was a risk to Carney's safety or to national security.
Another government official said the incident drives home the need for strong privacy policies in the banking sphere.
“It just reminds everyone that privacy and having systems to prevent fraudulent access to anyone's file is something we should all be concerned about,” Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, told the CBC on Wednesday.
For that matter, RBC posted a release on its website Wednesday, urging Canadians to “protect their digital persona” from artificial intelligence threats.
“Generative AI is transforming cybercrime, enabling fraudsters to automate scams, create deepfakes and exploit the digital footprints Canadians leave behind every day,” Adam Evans, RBC’s chief information security officer, said in the release. “Managing your digital persona is now a crucial part of protecting your most valuable asset: your data.”
Additional charges may come in the case, the RCMP told Reuters.
