Pakistan's top federal investigators have set up a dedicated unit to police crypto-linked crime, building out the enforcement side of a national drive to embrace digital assets.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has established a cryptocurrency investigation unit in its newly operational National Command and Control Centre (NC3), targeting money laundering and terrorism financing conducted through virtual currencies, the agency's counter-terrorism chief said.
The NC3 centre brings the FIA's financial-crime tools onto one platform, including anti-money laundering and virtual-currency investigation desks, an Interpol coordination point, and units for open-source intelligence, cyber patrolling and dark web investigation.
Pakistan and cryptoFor now, the FIA unit gives Islamabad an enforcement arm to match its regulatory ambitions—even as the question of whether crypto is permissible at all, in the eyes of the country's religious scholars, remains unresolved.
