A Nigerian parliamentary committee is demanding the arrest of Binance executives for allegedly facilitating numerous financial crimes on the Binance platform.
according to the report politics nigeriaThe House Financial Crimes Committee has announced plans to recommend that Congress invoke its authority to subpoena cryptocurrency exchange executives who fail to voluntarily appear before the committee.
The company’s executives were originally summoned to parliament in response to allegations by the Unemployed Youth Support Group and the Niger Delta Youth Council, including terrorist financing, money laundering and tax evasion. Binance decided to send legal representatives instead, much to the committee’s disappointment.
“Binance is not here. We took the position at our last meeting that we would not receive legal representation from Binance, and that position stands,” said Committee Chairperson Ginger Obinna Onwusibe.
Binance’s lawyer, Senator Lee Hen-yen, reportedly said that the exchange was concerned about sending its executives, given that two of its executives were detained last week. News of the detentions was previously reported: Bloomberg.
Last week, two executives, an unnamed British citizen and an American citizen, were detained in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The detentions come a day after they flew to negotiate with state authorities over a ban on several cryptocurrency trading websites, including Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
decryption We reached out to Binance for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Nigerian authorities have begun a crackdown on cryptocurrency platforms following the rapid devaluation of the naira, with inflation hitting a multi-decade high of 29.9% in January. These exchanges have become unofficial venues for establishing the naira’s value against other currencies and accessing assets such as Bitcoin, which supporters often refer to as inflation hedges.
Amid the chaos, Nigeria ordered Binance to pay a $10 billion fine for manipulating exchange rates and causing the value of the naira to plummet.
Binance was fined more than $4 billion by the U.S. Justice Department in November for ignoring anti-money laundering controls, and founder and former CEO Zhao Changpeng was forced out of the company. At that time, the agreement cleared Binance of existing market manipulation charges.
Editor: Andrew Hayward