FT reported the detention of Binance executives in Nigeria.🤔

Two Binance executives have been arrested in Nigeria as the country cracks down on cryptocurrency exchanges. This is reported by the Financial Times.

According to the publication's sources, company representatives flew to Nigeria after the authorities decided to ban several sites trading digital assets. However, upon arrival, they were detained by officials from the National Security Adviser's office and their passports were confiscated.

The government has turned its attention to crypto platforms following the rapid devaluation of the Naira (NGN). In 2023, inflation in the country reached a thirty-year high of 29.9%.

The Nigerian authorities believed that trading services contributed to the deterioration of the local currency by creating their own unofficial NGN rate.

Adviser to the Nigerian President Bayo Onanuga confirmed that Binance is “blatantly” setting local exchange quotes for the naira and abusing the central bank’s role as exchange rate operator.

After the executives were detained, Binance stopped trading Bitcoin and USDT in pairs with NGN.

During the press conference, the Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, discussed the impact of the largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume on the economy.

“We are concerned that certain practices continue to indicate illicit flows passing through a number of [cryptocurrency platforms]. In the case of Binance, $26 billion passed through its Nigerian subsidiary in the last year alone from sources and users that we cannot adequately identify,” he said.

According to Cardoso, Nigeria's anti-corruption agency, police and national security office were coordinating investigations into such platforms. FT sources also reported that authorities have been demanding a list of Nigerian Binance users since the company entered the jurisdiction.

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