Dollar To Naira Exchange Rate: Two Binance Top Officials Arrested, Passports Seized

Security operatives have reportedly arrested two top officials of cryptocurrency platform, Binance who flew into Nigeria recently.

It was gathered, as reported by a UK-based business news outlet, Financial Times, that the officials, whose identities are yet to be made public, were arrested, detained, and their passports seized.

The two Binance executives — an American and a British- Pakistani, whose names were not made available, are understood to have been detained on the orders of National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu over alleged involvement in foreign exchange manipulations.

Further information has it that the Federal Government obtained a Court Warrant to detain the men for 12 days, pending further investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

They were taken into custody at a Guest House operated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

While the details of the arrest are not yet made public, Naija News recalls that the federal government recently banned the operations of Binance in Nigeria.

Binance and some other platforms such as Forextime, OctaFX, Crypto, FXTM, Coinbase, Kraken, and some other major online crypto platforms were banned to avert the continuous manipulation of the forex market and illicit movement of funds.

The development comes after the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, ordered a crackdown on currency speculators in the country.

Again, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso, on Tuesday said over $26 billion flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from “unidentified sources”.

According to him, 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.

The developments come at a time the government is battling the continued depreciation of the Naira against the United States Dollar.