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This study aims to explain how cryptocurrency is leveraged for illicit purposes across the global financial system. Specifically, it establishes how cryptocurrency has been changing the nature of transnational and domestic money laundering (ML). It then assesses the effectiveness of conventional anti-money laundering (AML) policy and legislation against the proliferation of crypto laundering, using Canada as a critical case study.

Data was collected from court cases and secondary sources to build cross-case trends of cryptocurrency use in ML. Illicit International Political Economy forms the theoretical foundation for this study, whose contribution is situated in the current literature on crypto-ML.

This study finds that Bitcoin is common among crypto-money launderers, though most also use some form of alt-coin, and that the use of third-party currency exchanges is a prevalent method to create illicit funds and conceal proceeds of crime. The findings validate two hypotheses that illicit use of crypto is prevalent in the first two stages of ML, and that crypto is most often used in conjunction with other fiat currencies. Although law enforcement is improving on monitoring and understanding popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, alt-coins pose a significant challenge for criminal intelligence. New regulations for third-party currency exchanges are having a positive impact on curtailing crypto-laundering but are shown to be insufficient per se to contain the use of crypto in criminal activity.

This study contributes to a more robust understanding of the use of virtual currency in transnational and domestic ML. It contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of technological change in enabling the global flow of illicit funds. It also informs public policy on virtual currency in general, and on AML regulation in Canada in particular.

Possibilities for self-representation for transgender (trans) and gender non-conforming (GNC) youth must be conceptualized in relation to youths’ placement within frames of power. Powerful institutional forces in youths’ lives include schools and policing and, as is evidenced by youths’ statements, extend to mass media portrayals. Library approaches that reify the inclusion of representative texts do not adequately meet the needs of trans and GNC youth. As a profession, librarianship must reflect on ideological approaches to gendered embodiment to push against an ongoing repetition of institutional harms done to trans and GNC youth.

This chapter offers examinations of information needs, complex online worlds, and incorporation of histories made invisible by power alongside critical literacy skills as crucial aspects of providing services to all possibly or actually trans and GNC youth. It critically situates the circumstances of trans youths’ lives in relation to the effect that adult perceptions have on trans and GNC youths’ ability to access resources. It provides a framework for reflection on how young adult librarians often unconsciously limit library access by enacting gendered expectations that do not always match the possibility or actuality of youths’ experiences or self-conceptions. The chapter outlines modes of communication – through library materials, programs, community resources and partnerships – that convey deeper understandings of trans and GNC experiences to possibly or actually trans and GNC youth.