Binance says Nigerian officials demanded $150 million bribe

Binance says Nigerian government officials demanded a bribe to resolve a feud between the cryptocurrency company and the authorities.

The chief executive officer of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Richard Teng, said the company was asked for a large payment to make its problems in Nigeria “go away.”

Mr Teng made the claim in a blog post on Monday. He detailed how the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange tried to engage with Nigerian officials, including a Jan. 8 meeting in Abuja.

“As our employees were leaving the venue, they were approached by unknown persons who suggested to them to make a payment in settlement of the allegations,” he wrote.

He said later that day, Binance’s local lawyer was “presented with a demand for a significant payment in cryptocurrency to be paid in secret within 48 hours to make these issues go away.”

The New York Times reported that the amount in question was $150 million, citing unnamed sources.

The National Security Adviser office denied the allegation.

“Investigators are confident that the sequence of events is not as Binance has indicated, nor the material facts,” spokesperson Zakari Mijinyawa told Bloomberg. “It will of course be for the courts to decide, and for due process to be followed and justice delivered.”

“Acting in bad faith”

The federal government accuses Binance of using its platform to manipulate the value of the naira, an allegation the company denies.

In February, the government arrested two Binance executives who flew in for talks. One of them fled. The other, Tigran Gambaryan, has been held in Abuja and will go on trial this month on charges of tax evasion, currency speculation and money laundering.

Mr Teng called the charges “fabricated,” and demanded Mr Gambaryan’s release.

In his strongest comment on the issue yet, he accused Nigerian authorities of acting in bad faith. He described how Binance executives were invited for meetings in Nigeria in January, only to be detained.

He said his two colleagues were given repeated assurances they would be granted safe passage. “To invite a company’s mid-level employees for collaborative policy meetings, only to detain them, has set a dangerous new precedent for all companies worldwide,” he wrote.

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Following the arrests, Binance halted all transactions involving the naira on its platform.

“Our hope when we took this drastic step was that our colleagues would be released and Binance could continue to work with the Nigerian government to resolve any further concerns. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen,” said Mr Teng.