Pakistan’s top federal investigators have created a dedicated cryptocurrency investigation unit, adding an enforcement arm to the country’s wider effort to bring digital assets into a formal policy framework.
The Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA, has set up the unit inside its newly operational National Command and Control Centre, known as NC3. According to the agency’s counter-terrorism chief, the team will target money laundering and terrorism financing carried out through virtual currencies.
Dr Muhammad Athar Waheed, director of the FIA Counter-Terrorism Wing, told local outlet Dawn that the unit would investigate the criminal use of crypto. Regulation of digital assets, he said, remains with the recently created Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, or PVARA.
Waheed also urged two other agencies, the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and the Anti-Narcotics Force, to form similar units to address the use of crypto in cybercrime and the drug trade. He added that new rules were being drafted so investigations could be completed within fixed timeframes.
NC3 brings multiple investigative tools onto one platform
The NC3 centre consolidates the FIA’s financial-crime capabilities on a single platform. That includes anti-money laundering and virtual-currency investigation desks, an Interpol coordination point, and units focused on open-source intelligence, cyber patrolling, and dark web investigations.
Pakistan has been moving quickly on crypto policy
Pakistan ranked third in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index and has been pushing to formalize the sector. Islamabad has lifted an eight-year crypto banking ban, created PVARA, started advancing licenses for crypto exchanges, and explored the tokenization of state assets.
The country has also tied crypto into its diplomatic engagement with Washington. Pakistan struck a deal with an affiliate of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, to explore cross-border payments using its USD1 stablecoin.
Religious objections remain unresolved
That push ran into resistance in June, when the influential Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi seminary ruled that cryptocurrency is not “wealth” under Islamic law and therefore cannot serve as a valid means of payment. The fatwa cast doubt on the government’s plans.
Since then, PVARA chairman Bilal bin Saqib has asked the seminary to distinguish between purely speculative tokens and asset-backed instruments such as fully reserved stablecoins and blockchain-recorded sukuk. He told Reuters that Pakistan could “lead the world in Shariah-compliant digital finance.”
For now, the new FIA unit gives Islamabad an enforcement mechanism to go with its regulatory ambitions, while the question of whether crypto is permissible at all in the view of the country’s religious scholars remains unsettled.