The Federal Government is demanding at least $10 billion as retribution from crypto platform Binance, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said on Friday.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Onanuga said Binance profited substantially from its “illegal transactions” in Nigeria while the nation suffered huge losses.
He explained further that the Binance team were already cooperating with the Nigerian government by providing useful information, and had already suspended naira-related transactions on the platform.
“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.
FG arrests, detains two Binance executives in crypto crackdown
“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.
