February 28, 2024

Two senior executives at Binance have been detained in Nigeria.

According to Financial Times (FT), a UK-based business news outlet, the passports of the unnamed Binance executives were seized.

FT gathered that the executives flew to Nigeria following the country’s decision to ban several cryptocurrency trading websites last week but were detained with their passports seized.

Officials did not provide details on why the Binance employees are being detained and it remains unclear on whether they have been charged with any violations of Nigerian law.

The Nation reported last week Federal Government blocked the online platforms of Binance and other crypto firms to avert what it considers continuous manipulation of the forex market and illicit movement of funds.

Apart from Binance, other platforms such as Forextime, OctaFX, Crypto, FXTM, Coinbase, and Kraken, among others were also blocked.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday raised concerns over $26 billion that flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from “unidentified sources”.

CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, expressed worries over the significant volume of transactions passing through Binance Nigeria, emphasizing that the origins and beneficiaries of these funds are yet to be adequately identified.

“We are concerned that certain practices go on that indicate illicit flows going through a number of these entities and suspicious flows at best.

“In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify,” he stated.