Forex Crisis: Nigeria Arrests Executives From Binance, Cryptocurrency

FG detains Binance executives as Nigeria tries to rein in speculation on the naira by cracking down on cryptocurrency exchanges, per Financial Times.

As Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, attempts to control naira speculation by cracking down on cryptocurrency exchanges, two senior executives of Binance have been arrested in Nigeria.

The executives took a plane to Nigeria after the nation decided to outlaw a number of cryptocurrency trading websites last week. However, the national security adviser's office in Nigeria arrested them and confiscated their passports. citing sources with knowledge of the situation. A request for comment from the office was not immediately answered by one of its advisers. Binance said it would not comment.

The swift devaluation of the naira, which contributed to inflation reaching a nearly three-decade high of 29.9%, has led Nigerian authorities to focus on cryptocurrency websites. For trading and setting an informal price for Nigerian currency, these websites have become popular alternatives. Following the executives' apprehension, Binance stopped trading naira against bitcoin and tether cryptocurrency on its exchange.

The governor of Nigeria's central bank, Olayemi Cardoso, mentioned Binance at a press conference on Tuesday while talking about the money that passes through cryptocurrency 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.

Cardoso reported that an investigation into cryptocurrency exchanges was being coordinated by the national security adviser, police, and anti-corruption agency of Nigeria. According to someone with knowledge of the situation, the authorities have been requesting to see a list of Binance's Nigerian users ever since the company launched.

The telecom regulator gave telecom companies instructions last week to restrict access to some of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, including Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.