The House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes has ordered the immediate arrest of the Chief Executive of Binance Holding Limited, Richard Teng and Management
The arrest warrant comes following failure of Teng to appear before the committee and defend its alleged involvement in terrorism financing and money laundering.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Ginger Onwusibe issued the warrant of arrest on Monday when the CEO and Management again failed to appear before the committee but instead sent one Senator Ihengen, the company’s legal representative.
Ihengen, in his defence, said two top management staff of the company who arrived in the country earlier to appear before the committee were arrested by the Federal Government last week.
However, The Chairman of the committee dismissed the excuse and with a voice vote ordered the arrest of the CEO and Management.
The Reps had summoned the CEO and Management of Binance to appear before the committee on Monday unfailingly.
Binance, an online trading platform where users deal in cryptocurrency, has been flagged by the Central Bank of Nigeria to have been involved in money laundering, and terrorist financing among others.
Binance was recently banned in Nigeria to avert the continuous manipulation of the forex market and illicit movement of funds.
Apart from Binance, other platforms such as Forextime, OctaFX, Crypto, FXTM, Coinbase, Kraken, among others, were equally blocked.
The federal government decided to move against Binance and other crypto firms following reports that currency speculators and money launderers were using them to execute criminal activities.
Authorities believe the ‘criminal activities’ going on the platforms are contributing significantly to the weakening of the naira.
