The Story of Our Frozen Funds

Hello everyone! It’s November 2025, and our story with the long frozen money has finally started to get at least somewhat resolved.

Backstory

In February 2022, we had been living in Canada for a little over a year, but our savings remained in Russia — mine from selling my apartment in St. Petersburg, and D.’s just regular savings. We didn’t transfer the money to Canada when we moved here because at that moment our relocation and work permit situation was extremely confusing. When we opened an RBC account right after the move, the clerk told us that if the work permit expired, the account would automatically close and we would have to withdraw everything. And since we were constantly living in an unstable situation, we decided that until we received PR or moved somewhere else, we would leave the savings in Alfa-Bank in Russia.

What Happened

We were living our usual life, and at some point I completely disconnected from the news because my anxiety was already at a maximum with our immigration adventures. But in February, information about the upcoming war (?!?!?) started reaching us — something we, like everyone else, could not believe and thought was nonsense. But in the 20s of February 2022, we panicked and decided it was time to transfer the money here to feel calmer. At that moment in Alfa-Bank, transfers over 5k USD could only be made through a manager (unlike some other banks, for example, where I sent a transfer in one click and it arrived the same day). Even though we were premium clients, the time difference slowed everything down, plus February 23 was a holiday in Russia. In the end, two transfers were sent on the same day the war started: one from my account from Alfa-Bank to our joint RBC account, and the other from D. to the same account, USD to USD.

Part 1: What Happened Next

Surely everyone remembers the panic and emotional state at that time. We weren’t overly worried about the money because it was clear everyone was trying to transfer funds and it would take some time: from a couple of weeks to a month. The manager in Alfa-Bank also reassured us and said that the transfers would definitely arrive soon. We flew to a long-planned vacation (where we then got stuck because of an deactivated visa, fun times. Finally returning to Canada, in April 2022 we started worrying about where our money was.

Part 2: We Start Investigating

Canada was one of the first countries (or even the first) to impose sanctions. I decided to go look at who and what was on the lists. Of course, we were not on the sanctions list, BUT Alfa-Bank was! Technically, we requested the transfer before the sanctions. But we had no idea at what moment the bank processed the transfer, because usually it all takes time. The transfer receipt showed that the transfer was created on February 24 and sent on February 25. Alfa-Bank also confirmed that the transfer was received on the Canadian side, but we did not receive it.

On March 17, an RBC representative told us that they had no money and no information about where the money could be:
I attempted to locate the wires again for us as requested and unfortunately they have confirmed again that there are no wires present to be credited from Alfa Bank for the transactions listed above.

Then we requested a more technical document from Alfa-Bank, and it said: Status RECEIVED. Also, all USD transfers go through the U.S. via a correspondent bank — in our case, JP Morgan. On their website, it was possible to find a document showing whether the money arrived at the final bank.

With all these documents, we contacted RBC again, but they simply stopped responding to us. Alfa-Bank, of course, couldn’t do anything on their side — everything had been completed on their end, and the money was received in Canada.

Part 3: We Continue the Investigation

I started Googling where to go next. I decided I could call the authority that oversees banks in their work with clients — OFAC. There, in a pretty rude manner, they told me that they couldn’t do anything and basically asked how I even dared to call them with such a question while Russia was bombing Ukraine.

Thinking about what to do next, I decided that there was nothing better than writing an email to Global Affairs. I sent them all our confirmations that the money had been sent and received, wrote a sad letter explaining that this was all our life savings, we did not support the war (which is more than true, we basically moved from Russia because of politics!) and asked for help because we were ordinary Canadian taxpayers. The first email I ever sent them was in April 2022, then another in May. I never got a reply.

Later in April, I decided to write a huge letter to our MP (Member of Parliament) and attached Trudeau’s statement saying that all actions of Canada are aimed at the Russian government, not citizens (and especially not Canadian residents!). It’s worth noting that there were no ChatGPTs — I wrote all these huge emails myself and spent tons of time on them. In response, I got a message saying, “your letter is very important to us.” So nothing changed.

In June 2022, a manager from Alfa-Bank told us that Global Affairs had created a more or less official procedure for such cases: you needed to write them an email and request a permit to unblock the funds. I immediately sent them another email but this time not just asking to help figure things out — I requested a permit. For the first time, I received at least an auto-response from them.

And that was the first and last email from Global Affairs for a very long time. The next exchanges looked like this (constant auto-replies).

Part 4: Continuing the Fight

In November 2022, our neighbor advised us to write to a Globe and Mail journalist so they could write an article about this. I contacted them and even talked to them, but I really didn’t want them to publish my name: I was worried how it would affect my job, what would happen with our residency, and overall the public sentiment was not exactly supportive of people like us. He refused to hide my name, so there was no article.

I started Googling which journalists follow sanctions and reading their articles. I found a woman from CBC and wrote to her. At the same time, I started looking for people (in Telegram and Facebook groups) with the same problem and asking if they were ready to participate in an interview. She was very interested in the story, and in February 2023, we created a whole series covering the issue: a TV report, an article on their website, and a radio program. The comments were extremely harsh: saying it was our own fault, that we were wealthy oligarchs, etc. I decided I wouldn’t get myself into something like that ever again. But in these reports, there was a lawyer who deals with such cases. I even went to find out how much it would cost to work with him. But the problem was that the lawyer could only offer to write a letter to Global Affairs on our behalf — which made no sense to me — and on average it cost around 5k. They also couldn’t take it to court (I don’t remember why), and a class action wouldn’t be accepted for such cases.

In parallel, we occasionally contacted RBC — without results. By then we had moved from Toronto to Vancouver, so we had a new MP. After settling in a bit, in July 2023 I wrote her an email asking for help escalating the situation. Everything was quite useless, although they tried! I even once met her at a farmers’ market with a huge belly and talked to her in person; she was very sweet but couldn’t help.

Then a baby was born, and for a while I paused everything. In September 2024, when I finally had the strength, time, and we also received our permanent residency, I decided to write to everyone who came to mind: the Premier of British Columbia, the Minister of Finance, the Jewish Centre in Vancouver (lol), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I ordered ATIP (Access of Information Act) reports (which turned out to contain nothing useful), wrote to Global Affairs in parallel, contacted other lawyers, spoke with people in the same situation, reached out to all my Canadian friends in case someone had connections, posted in a Facebook moms’ group, contacted a journalist and asked her to write another article (she didn’t). NOTHING helped.

Part 5: WHERE IS THE MONEY?!

The funniest part (not really) is that during all this time nobody—absolutely nobody—except Alfa-Bank and J.P. Morgan confirmed that the money was in Canada. We had all the documents stating it, but neither the bank nor Global Affairs confirmed that yes, the funds were here and we needed to obtain a permit to unlock them (mainly because we never got any reply from them and RBC couldn’t share anything with us). Essentially, we applied for the permit completely blindly. Then the Canadian governmen changed, and our MP changed as well. I started sending all the emails again in a circle. Our new MP didn’t respond to me at all for a couple of months.

On July 15, 2025, Global Affairs sent out a mass email saying they were working on all permits. I decided that it was weird, but I sent an email to Mark Carney’s office (our new Prime Minister). Surprisingly, his office replied! They said they would escalate the issue to the Minister of Global Affairs, and that they were obligated to respond to me. By some miracle, after all this, Global Affairs wrote me an email specifically about our case. On August 5, 2025, for the first time ever, we received at least some response to all my emails. But there were no timelines; they simply said: “As previously communicated in a July 15, 2025 correspondence, we confirm that your application is actively being reviewed by Global Affairs Canada. Please rest assured that we will inform you directly once a decision has been reached” (on July 15 they had sent me yet another auto-reply).

Part 6: Hooray, the Permit! But Where is the Money?!

On October 17, 2025, we received the long-awaited email saying that the permit had been issued! It wasn’t personalized — just a general email. Almost everyone I know in this situation received the same email. It said that the permit was issued and now the banks were obligated to release the funds.

Knowing how our banks and Global Affairs work, I decided we needed to go to the bank. Clerks at he bank were hearing about all of this for the first time ever. At first, for the 105th time, they asked us to contact Alfa-Bank; after I almost burnt from anger because I had to explain everything AGAIN, they escalated the case somewhere. A week later, my money was deposited on our account! Except for $10 USD, which is not a fee (banks charge a fee for receiving a transfer, but at RBC that fee is a separate transaction and is $17, not $10). Later they told me that either JP Morgan took it (unlikely) or it “got lost” along the way — they would investigate :/.

But D.’s money was never deposited. We went to the bank again to open another case. This time, there’s no progress at all. Instead, they started telling me nonsense about waiting for a response from CRA (the Canadian tax agency). I couldn’t listen to it anymore because what does the tax agency have to do with sanctions???! I called the tax agency; they said RBC most likely confused something. A week later the RBC manager called me and said she confused CRA with Global Affairs (WHAT?!). Okay, fine, but what do they want from Global Affairs? I tried once again to explain to them that they didn’t need to wait for anything because the permit had already been issued — just release the money! The manager told me that Global Affairs reviews all cases individually and they needed to wait for a response (I’m dead here). She also told me they had no idea where the money was because they had nothing on their accounts / or couldn’t see it. If there is no response within 45 days, we will email the ombudsman and file a complaint.

Part 6: Conclusion

In total, during all the time our funds were inaccessible, we lost around $11,500 to inflation (inflation was very high in 2022; in 2025 it was lower). This doesn’t include how much we didn’t earn because this money could have been invested in stocks or interest-bearing accounts. The number of lost nerve cells and hours spent on all of these things is impossible to describe.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, will be held accountable. In the end, we are all just supposed to be grateful that we got our own money back (first make something bad, then make it normal so it feels good, as they say). Honestly, I didn’t expect this from a country like Canada (in 2022 I didn’t expect it; now, after all this, I expect anything). What conclusion can be drawn from all this? I don’t know — probably that nobody cares about anyone. It’s better not to get involved in any issues that deal with an institution like the Government.

And finally, the question remains: where is the money?! To be continued…