By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top federal law enforcement agency has opened a specialised unit to investigate cryptocurrency-related crimes, part of a broader overhaul of the agency’s command structure aimed at curbing money laundering, terrorism financing, and human trafficking.
The Federal Investigation Agency’s new cryptocurrency investigation unit operates out of a recently activated National Command and Control Centre, a facility designed to consolidate the agency’s surveillance, intelligence, and enforcement operations under a single command structure.
Dr. Muhammad Athar Waheed, director of the FIA’s Counter-Terrorism Wing, said the unit will focus on how digital assets are used to facilitate crime, distinguishing its mandate from that of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the country’s newly formed regulatory body for digital assets.
“With the introduction of several reform initiatives, the FIA has already demonstrated significant improvement in its performance, and we expect a number of additional key projects to be completed over the next six months,” Waheed said in an interview with Dawn, the Pakistani newspaper.
Waheed said he believes other federal agencies — the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and the Anti-Narcotics Force among them — should form comparable units to address cryptocurrency’s growing role in cybercrime and narcotics trafficking. New procedural rules are also being drafted, he said, to impose firm deadlines on the completion of agency investigations.
Waheed credited Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi with playing a central role in the FIA’s modernization, saying Naqvi provided critical support for the agency’s overhaul.
A Unified Command Structure
The National Command and Control Centre, known internally as NC3, was built to serve as a single operational hub, linking together the FIA’s investigative, intelligence, and enforcement functions that had previously operated with less coordination. Waheed described it as a platform for intelligence fusion and inter-agency coordination, bringing the FIA’s operational units under one roof.
Two of its components — the Immigration Monitoring Unit and the Integrated Border Management System — give officials real-time visibility into traveler movements, along with biometric verification and screening capabilities at ports of entry and exit across the country.
The center also houses a Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Desk, which coordinates intelligence operations targeting organized smuggling networks, and a Risk Analysis Unit tasked with flagging high-risk individuals, unusual travel patterns, and emerging security threats.
To bolster its financial crimes capabilities, the NC3 includes dedicated units for anti-money laundering and virtual currency investigations. An Interpol Desk within the center functions as Pakistan’s coordination point for cooperating with international law enforcement agencies.
Officials said a new case management system allows for real-time tracking of investigations and performance metrics across FIA offices nationwide. The center has also added a 24-hour public helpline, a complaint management unit, and a dedicated cell for handling complaints from overseas Pakistanis, intended to speed up the agency’s response to citizen concerns.
“Its intelligence capabilities are further reinforced by open source intelligence, cellular detection, cyber patrolling and dark web investigation units, which support intelligence gathering, lawful technical analysis and the detection of cyber-enabled and transnational crimes,” one official said.
A centralized daily situation report and an operational support desk are intended to give senior FIA leadership real-time awareness of operations and coordination across the country, officials said.
Staffing and Equipment Expansion
The agency has also formed special weapons and tactics teams to serve as raiding parties and protect FIA investigators during operations, and has expanded its vehicle fleet, according to officials.
International coordination is being strengthened as well, officials said, with the creation of a new director-level post focused specifically on that function. “Many new things are in the pipeline. Recruitment of around 1,300 officials is in progress while more recruitment will be made in the future,” one official said. The agency has also adopted Punjab police welfare rules for its own employees, officials said.
A separate FIA official said that over the past two years, the agency has registered more than 300 First Information Reports — the formal complaints that open criminal investigations in Pakistan — related to human trafficking, resulting in 258 arrests of trafficking agents and what the official described as significant recoveries. “We have busted many gangs involved in human trafficking; as a result, the incidents of boat tragedies are witnessing a decline,” the official said.
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