Binance has been ordered by a Nigerian court to hand over data on all of its Nigerian users. This is according to a report by local media platform Peoples Gazette. The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja gave the order after it was believed that the company contributed to the weakening of the country’s currency, the Naira.
It is said that Binance, allegedly moving a total of $26 billion worth of untraceable funds in 2023 from the country. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is being fine a whooping $10 billion as compensation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The company has been in entanglement with the Nigerian government in the past year. It’s top two executives were recently arrested by the Nigeria security forces. Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial-crime compliance at Binance who previously worked at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan national and Binance’s regional manager for Africa, were arrested in the country when they came to address allegations leveled against them.
The top bosses have been in police custody for the past two weeks in the country. A statement by the families revealed that the Nigerian government officials invited Binance executives to discuss an ongoing dispute about the world’s largest crypto exchange allegedly driving down the value of their national currency. Gambaryan and Anjarwalla arrived in Nigeria on February 25th; after their meeting with government officials, both were taken to their hotels. Later, they were instructed to pack their belongings and move to a guesthouse run by Nigeria’s National Security Agency.
It is said that the Nigerian government has accused Binance of exacerbating the country’s foreign exchange challenges through rate manipulation for profit. The authorities have also accused the crypto exchange of illegal operations and have restricted access to the company’s website.
