Two senior executives at cryptocurrency exchange Binance have been detained in Nigeria, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
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The executives reportedly flew into Nigeria following Federal Government’s decision to ban several cryptocurrency trading websites last week, but were detained by the office of the country’s national security adviser and their passports seized.
FT in its report said that an adviser to the NSA office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Binance was also declined to comment.
In the face of a currency crisis that has enveloped the country, regulators made significant changes, blocking access to the websites of several exchanges and pegging USDT/NGN exchange rates.
On Wednesday, several crypto exchanges barred users from buying the USDT and USDC stablecoins, TechCabal reported.
Last week, Nigerian telecoms regulator ordered telecoms operators in the country to block access to some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.
Olayemi Cardoso, the central bank governor, alluded to some actions by security agencies at the end of the monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and said those actions would soon be made public.
The CBN governor at the press conference on Tuesday named Binance while discussing the funds flowing through crypto exchanges.
“We are concerned that certain practices go on that indicate illicit flows going through a number of these entities [crypto platforms] and suspicious flows at best,” Cardoso told reporters. “In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26bn has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify,” he added.
According to Cardoso, Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, police and national security adviser were co-ordinating an investigation into cryptocurrency exchanges. The authorities were demanding to see a list of Binance’s Nigerian users since its inception, a person familiar with the matter said.
The arrest of the Binance executives is coming as the crypto exchange tries to reform its internal culture.
In November the company paid $4.3bn in penalties to US authorities after pleading guilty to criminal charges related to money laundering and violating
Investogist reported that Binance chief Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws as part of the $4.3 billion settlement resolving a years-long probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur