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Author: daniel kuhn, Coindesk; compile: Deng Tong, Bitchain Vision Realm
At the end of February,The Nigerian government publicly stated that it believes that in 2023, it was illegally transferred abroad through Binance.This estimation was made by the president of the country’s central bank. He said that the country is losing taxes in unregistered encryption activities.
A few days later, the country’s authorities invited two executives of Binance -Tigran Gambaryan, which is responsible for the financial crime compliance of the exchange and the company’s African regional manager Nadim Annan, and the company’s African regional manager,Nadeem Anjarwalla -to discuss this issue in the country.According to reports,The authorities asked them to announce the names of the Nigerians who traded on their platforms.
On February 26, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were detained but were not charged with any crimes.The court approved the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission to detain these two executives for 14 days. Although they were originally scheduled to be in court on April 4, the BBC reported that they continued to detain Gambaryan and Anjarwalla as “illegal”.
According to reports,After arriving at the country, the two were intercepted by national security officials because Binance was illegally operated in Nigeria.A week ago, the country took action to prevent access to multiple cryptocurrency platforms to strengthen foreign exchange and capital control of local currency Nala, which collapsed.
Nigeria is facing a shortage of US dollars, and the exchange rate of Nala’s against the US dollar has fallen by about 70%since last year.Nigerian central bank governor Olayemi Cardoso directly named Binance at the press conference at the end of February. At that time, he announced a record of rising interest rates to prevent Nala’s collapse.
It is undoubtedly controversial whether Binance has affected Nigeria’s worsening economic situation. However, from the perspective of the degree of detention of middle -level managers in the country, Nigeria seems to be seeking tough means to exchanges and for it.Financial difficulties are looking for scapegoats.
At this moment, Binance is an international pariah to some extent.The world’s largest exchanges recently agreed to pay a record of $ 4.3 billion in the US Department of Justice’s record of US $ 4.3 billion, because the “terrible” crimes it committed, including providing convenience for terrorist financing and the worst things that can be done online.
The exchange has been driven out of countless countries around the world, and its founding CEO and the spokesperson of Binance Zhao Changpeng over the years have been ordered to step down and may face federal prison prison.In other words, many international courts or better commercial institutions are unlikely to care about the existence of the exchange (the exchanges refuse to set up headquarters in any particular country, and the situation will become worse).
So what you can imagine is,Nigeria regards Binance as the object of extortionThis is a thing that no embassy will defend, and many people tend to think that it may promote the illegal transfer or tax evasion of the country’s funds.It is worth noting,Although the Nigerian government took action to prevent access to other cryptocurrency platforms, it seemed that only Binance was attacked.
In early March, Bayo Onanuga, a President of Nigeria, suggested that the country can fined the Binance of $ 10 billion, but he later stated that his remarks were wrong, and everything was not “finalized.”” “.On Monday, the country finally began to accuse Binance tax evasion.
The Nigerian Federal Taxation Bureau announced on Monday thatBinance is facing four allegations, including suspected of not paying VAT (VAT or sales tax), corporate income tax, non -submitting tax declaration form, and conspiracy to help customers evade taxes through its platform.
The tax institution said that Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were reported to be the defendant of the case filed by the Court of High Court of the capital Abuja, the capital of the country.According to reports, in the initial dialogue, the Nigerian authorities expressed two main concerns about Binance:It cannot track the funds flowing through the exchange, and the exchanges to put pressure on Nirah by the transaction on the market to promote its point -to -point market.
Due to the pressure of the Nigerian government, Binance stopped all its support for its Nigerian P2P market in early March.After the former President Muhammadu Buharithe banned many cryptocurrency activities in the country, the service obviously became more and more popular in 2021.In July 2023, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission warned currency, saying that “any investment public dealt with the entity” faced the “high risk” of losing funds.
However, the country’s blow is not just Binance.Bloomberg reports that “anti -corruption” officials have been arrested street currency dealers and other foreign exchange operators who have no photos.This undoubtedly provides a background for Nigeria to provide information from the country’s top 100 users and the exchanges in the past six months of trading history information.
Binance said that before and after Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were arrested, the company had previously cooperated with Nigerian institutions to respond to the 626 information requests by the law enforcement agencies in the past four years.At the end of last year, a team even participated in training courses from anti -corruption institutions.
Cryptocurrencies will definitely exacerbate Nigeria’s economic situation.In the face of inflation and economic turmoil, the level of use and use of Bitcoin and stable coins is higher than the average level. The reason is that cryptocurrencies are a way to get rid of the poor situation.This may be why the Nigerian Central Bank canceled the ban on banks engaged in cryptocurrencies in December 2023 and issued a regulatory guide for virtual asset service providers.This will enable the authorities to better control and understand the use of cryptocurrencies.
However, many economists believe that many factors crack down on Nala.President Bora Tetubu relaxed the country’s foreign exchange policy and reduced Nala’s staring at the exchange rate to attract foreign investment and make this country relying on petroleum to diversify the economy, which caused the weakened economic snow to worsen.Unfortunately, investment progress is slow (in fact, many foreign companies are leaving the country), and Nala has fallen for several months.
This is a tragic story.President Tinubu took office in May 2023 and vowed to support local enterprises, investment infrastructure and solve the problem of jihad terrorists invading Nigerian shipping.Cryptocurrencies are also a national priority, which is an interesting signal for the entire cryptocurrency industry, whether it is legal or not.
Of course, Nigeria may welcome the encryption industry to enter the country, which will help promote the financial service industry and contribute to the treasury.It is worth noting that after Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were arrested, the Binance spokesman said that Nigeria “is not one of its largest markets yet, although the country has more than 200 million, and has” extraordinary potential, we want to continue investing “there.Essence
There is no essential mistakes to trace a company that has not paid taxes or operates outside the financial regulatory agency.However, Nigeria should aim at a company, not an executive of middle -level managers and family members.Otherwise, the world may want more political criminals to escape, rather than cheering for legal investigations.
