The Nigerian Federal Government has continued to mount pressure on the crypto exchange, Binance. In a new development, the government has reportedly ordered the exchange to reveal its top 100 users in the country as part of its investigations into the activities of the exchange.
According to a report by Vanguard, the FG also ordered Binance to release all transaction history over the past 6 months. This, the report said, was to establish the negotiations between the Nigerian government and the cryptocurrency exchange.
In the report, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) was also asking the exchange to resolve any outstanding tax liabilities.
FG goes after Binance
This is coming amid a government crackdown on the activities of crypto exchanges suspected of fixing the dollar-to-naira exchange rate on their platforms. Prominent of these platforms is Binance, a company with a running history with the government. Overall, it had been a really wild February for the company as the government decided to make a scapegoat of it.
The company’s ordeal began when the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga urged the Central Bank and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to clamp down on cryptocurrency companies for alleged manipulation of the foreign exchange market.
In a statement issued on X (Twitter), Bayo said Binance blatantly sets exchange rates for Nigeria and hijacks the CBN’s role, adding that it is a platform that suffers access limitations from multiple jurisdictions, such as the US, Singapore, Canada, and the UK. According to him, crypto exchanges like Binance and Kucoin ought to be prohibited from Nigeria’s cyberspace.
With that narrative gaining steam, the Central Bank of Nigeria, in conjunction with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) directed all telecommunications companies in the country to restrict access to crypto companies’ websites and applications. Before long, Binance users were complaining about not getting access to their platforms. The company was eventually forced to take down its Naira P2P platform
Later in February, news broke that two senior executives of the company had been arrested by the Nigerian authorities. After two weeks in detention, the families of the executives identified them as Tigran Gambaryan, a former crypto-focused US federal agent, and a Kenyan Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla. The families accused the Nigerian Government of holding them captive without access to their passports.
.Amid all of this, the Central Bank Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, revealed that over the last 12 months, more than $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and accounts that were not adequately identified.
According to him, the CBN has a responsibility to protect Nigerians and is now collaborating with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Police, and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA). He added that in due course, information would be provided when they are available while also announcing his resolve to prevent market manipulation.
This latest order for Binance to reveal its top 100 users in Nigeria seems like the latest step to identify these suspected accounts and sources responsible for the $26 billion cash flow. With the two Binance executives still held indefinitely, the FG appears to have all the cards. The coming days would be interesting.
See also: Here is why USDT trading on Binance P2P is not the cause of the Naira free fall
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