Nigerian authorities on Monday filed four tax evasion charges against cryptocurrency trading firm Binance and said they were seeking to cooperate with Interpol to arrest a company official who escaped detention last week.
The charges stem from an investigation into the company’s Nigerian offices for alleged attempts to manipulate the Nigerian currency.
Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service said on Monday that Binance violated four tax laws, failing to pay corporate income tax, failing to pay value-added tax, failing to comply with tax return obligations and facilitating tax evasion by Binance users.
The government also said Binance failed to register for tax purposes with the authorities.
Binance has denied any wrongdoing in Nigeria in the past. The company did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.
Nigerian authorities detained two of the company’s top executives – American citizen Tigran Gambaryan and British Kenyan Nadeem Anjawalla – on February 26.
Eze Onyekpere, founder of the Center for Social Justice, said the arrests and charges were largely expected.
“It’s not surprising that they may have violated Nigerian laws,” Onikepere said. “Nigeria is not the only country to accuse executives of violating the law. The only reasonable thing to do is to take them to court and give them justice. Opportunity to defend oneself. Due process and fair hearing must be followed.”
Meanwhile, the Office of the National Security Adviser said on Monday that Anjawala had escaped custody. Security advisers said authorities were working with international police to obtain an arrest warrant.
Binance said it was aware that one of the officers was no longer in custody.
Nigerian authorities last year introduced bold reforms, including currency controls, to boost the economy.
But a few months after implementation, the naira devalued by about 70%. Authorities say companies like Binance played a role by trying to manipulate the currency.
But public finance expert Isaac Botti said this would not have happened if the government had not been so negligent to companies like Binance that exploited the system for profit.
“Our system is designed to be porous, and that’s what these guys took advantage of,” Botti said. “They understand the system. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t create room for this kind of porosity in your system.”
Earlier this month, Binance ended all trades and transactions in Nigeria’s local currency and said any remaining balances would be automatically converted to Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.
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