How Binance harbours people who fix the exchange rate – Onanuga

The federal government is seeking at least $10 billion in retribution from cryptocurrency platform Binance, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said on Friday.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Onanuga stated that Binance profited significantly from its “illegal transactions” in Nigeria, while the country suffered enormous losses.

He went on to say that the Binance team was already working with the Nigerian government to provide useful information, and that naira-related transactions on the platform had already been suspended.

“The platform fixes the exchange rate for the country and it is an illegal rate. The CBN is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for the country,” Onanuga said.

“Binance platform harbours people who fix the exchange rate which quickly affects the Nigerian economy for the time when Nigeria is trying to stabilise the economy.

“Binance staff cooperated with the government to provide information.”

On Wednesday, Nigerian authorities detained two executives of the crypto exchange platform in Abuja days after they flew into the country as part of moves to negotiate with the government.

Although the identities of the Binance executives are unclear, one of them is an American and the other a British-Pakistani, Premium Times gathered.

The newspaper also said it learnt that the government obtained a court warrant to detain the officials for at least 12 days in the first instance.