The federal government has fined cryptocurrency exchange platform, Binance, $10 billion over alleged manipulation of naira exchange rate.
Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the president, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on Friday morning in an interview with the BBC.
According to him, the fine was demanded for the illegal operations of Binance which contributed hugely to the devaluation of the country’s currency, naira in recent times.
“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,” BBC quoted Onanuga as saying.
Onanuga further claimed that Binance is not registered in Nigeria and has no presence in the country.
He explained further that the Binance team was already cooperating with the Nigerian government by providing useful information, and had already suspended naira-related transactions on the platform.
Onanuga pointed out that the government has been seeing the negative impacts of Binance’s operation in Nigeria, Onanuga said:
“The platform fixes the exchange rate in Nigeria, which is illegal. The Central Bank of Nigeria is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for Nigeria.
“Binance harbours a lot of people who fix exchange rates which impacted the country badly at a time when the government is trying to stabilise the economy.”
He added that Binance influenced the increase in foreign exchange rates through currency speculations which made the Naira value to fall by almost 70 per cent in recent months.
On Friday, the Office of the National Security Adviser confirmed that the federal government was investigating the operations of Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange company.
Two days ago, it was reported that two executives of the company were arrested and detained by the Nigerian government while investigations into their activities were ongoing.
Head of Strategic Communication, Office of the National Security Adviser, Zakari Mijinyawa, said the office was coordinating the activities of other agencies to investigate the operations of the company.
He said, “The office is leading and coordinating an interagency process by law enforcement officers – this includes ongoing investigations into the operations of Binance. Outcomes from this interagency investigation will be made available in due course.”
Binance has previously been sanctioned by the US government for repeatedly engaging in currency manipulation.
Following the crackdown by the federal government, the company on Wednesday suspended its operation and barred users from buying the USDT and USDC stablecoins with Naira following fresh investigations by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collaboration with security agencies.
A report by Financial Times had alleged that the arrested operatives were an American and a British-Pakistani.
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, recently disclosed that $26 billion passed through Binance Nigeria from unidentified sources in one year.