Specifics are sketchy at this stage, but on August 24th Pakistan’s City42 news reported a government crackdown on OneCoin.

City42’s report was picked up by the Pakistan blog Tech Juice, who provided a more English-friendly version of the announcement.

According to Tech Juice,

after receiving a statement from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), (the Federal Investigation Agency) is going after OneCoin and Bitcoin.

Initially, (the) FIA will take action in Lahore and later it will be countrywide.

Exact reasons for this action against OneCoin and Bitcoin have not been made clear.

It’s interesting that the FIA has lumped OneCoin together with bitcoin, as the two are quite different.

Bitcoin is a legitimate cryptocurrency that is publicly traded. OneCoin are Ponzi points that hold no value outside of the company that issues them.

Be it through legitimate cryptocurrency or Ponzi points, it seems the Pakistani government is looking to combat digital money laundering.

At least that’s my impression.

At the time of publication City42’s video report on Facebook has over 134,000 views and 1300 comments.

As I understand it Pakistan was a major recruiting ground for OneCoin but has since cooled. Interest largely stemmed from UK affiliates, who abused religious influence to spread OneCoin throughout Pakistan.

Alexa currently peg Pakistan as the fifth largest source of traffic to the OneCoin website and third largest to OneLife.