Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency has established a dedicated cryptocurrency investigation unit to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. According to reports from Dawn, the new unit operates within the FIA's National Command and Control Centre (NC3) and will investigate suspected use of cryptocurrencies in criminal activities. Dr. Muhammad Athar Waheed, director of the FIA's Counter-Terrorism Wing, confirmed the unit's creation in a statement to Dawn, drawing a clear boundary between the FIA's enforcement role and the regulatory role of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA). The unit sits inside the FIA's newly operational National Command and Control Centre, known as NC3, giving Pakistan a dedicated enforcement arm for digital assets.
The new unit separates criminal investigations from the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority's (PVARA) regulatory responsibilities. As reported by Dawn, this separation creates distinct roles for market regulation and law enforcement as Pakistan develops its formal crypto framework. Officials are recommending that the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and the Anti-Narcotics Force create similar specialist teams for cybercrime and drug-related cases involving digital assets. Waheed specifically urged these agencies to follow the FIA's example, with each targeting crypto's use in its respective area. This mirrors a wider global push against crypto-enabled crime, with US prosecutors bringing several cases against individuals accused of money laundering, investment scams, and other digital asset crimes in recent months.
The cryptocurrency investigation team forms part of a wider upgrade at the FIA's NC3 command centre, which brings key operational units onto a single platform for monitoring, intelligence sharing, inter-agency coordination and nationwide operational support. The NC3 platform consolidates several tools that were previously spread across different parts of the agency, housing Anti-Money Laundering desks, virtual currency investigation tools, open-source intelligence units, a cyber patrolling function, and a dark web monitoring operation. The agency is also drafting new procedural rules that would set fixed time limits on how long investigations can run before they must be concluded. The system integrates anti-money laundering teams, border monitoring, intelligence coordination, cyber patrols, dark web investigations and Interpol cooperation.
The unit launch follows the March 2026 passage of the Virtual Assets Act, which established a comprehensive regulatory framework for the digital finance sector and created the PVARA as the federal authority responsible for supervising virtual asset service providers. In April, the State Bank of Pakistan replaced a 2018 circular that prohibited financial institutions from conducting cryptocurrency transactions, allowing banks to open accounts for virtual asset service providers (VASP) licensed by PVARA. Companies with preliminary regulatory approval—a no-objection certificate (NOC)—can open limited accounts for licensing purposes, with full operations available only after final approval. PVARA is currently accepting applications for NOCs, while the full VASP licensing regime is still being prepared. Pakistan ranks among the world's largest crypto markets, placing third in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index behind only India and the United States.
Pakistan continues exploring broader blockchain applications beyond cryptocurrency enforcement. The government struck a deal with an affiliate of World Liberty Financial, a venture associated with the Trump family, to pilot the USD1 stablecoin for cross-border payments, positioning crypto as a tool for international settlements outside traditional banking channels. However, the enforcement drive lands while Pakistan's religious scholars remain split on crypto's Islamic permissibility. The new unit gives Islamabad muscle to match its regulatory ambitions, even as a Shariah debate over whether crypto is permissible stays unresolved. PVARA chairman Bilal bin Saqib responded by engaging the seminary directly, asking it to separate speculative tokens from asset-backed instruments such as fully reserved stablecoins, tokenized gold, and blockchain-recorded Islamic bonds. In September 2025, PVARA invited leading global crypto companies to apply for participation in the country's emerging digital economy.
