Canada: Authorities Arrest 87 Cyber Fraudsters Using LabHost

This crackdown follows the dismantling in April 2024 of a platform designed to facilitate phishing campaigns.

On April 16, 2025, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the Quebec division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested 87 cyber fraudsters in the Greater Montreal area. The suspects are accused of carrying out phishing attacks using LabHost, a cybercriminal platform that provided tools to facilitate such operations.

In April 2024, law enforcement agencies from 19 countries, coordinated by Europol and Interpol, dismantled LabHost and arrested 37 suspects across five continents, including one of the platform’s administrators, Zak Coyne. On April 15, 2025, Coyne was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison in the United Kingdom. He was found guilty of having assisted 2,000 fraudsters from 91 countries in stealing a total of £100 million (116 million euros).

The April 2024 takedown, in which the RCMP participated, also led to the seizure of a server containing data on LabHost’s Canadian clients. The SQ’s Cybercrime Investigation Division, specializing in financial crimes, then took over the investigation that led to this major crackdown. The SQ and RCMP estimate that LabHost’s tools enabled the defrauding of 1.2 million people in Canada, including 292,000 in Quebec.