The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in Abuja has accused Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, of four counts of tax evasion.
The charges filed by the revenue service says counts include non-payment of value-added tax (VAT), company income tax, failure to file tax returns, and complicity in helping customers to evade taxes through its platform.
Binance, while desisting to comment on the charges said in a statement that it was aware that Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan who is Binance’s regional manager for Africa, was no longer under Nigerian custody and that the company was working with authorities to resolve issues of currency speculation and ultimate crash of the naira currency as they were detained by the Office of National Security Adviser.
Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, and Anjarwalla, flew to Nigeria following the country’s decision to ban several cryptocurrency trading websites and were detained on arrival on Feb. 26.
It is reported that Nigerian authorities had asked an Abuja court to extend the detention of the two Binance executives caught up in the country’s cryptocurrency crackdown after an initial warrant used to hold them lapsed.
Binance, earlier this month, stopped all transactions and trading in Nigeria’s local currency amid a country-wide crackdown on crypto exchanges that have been blamed by authorities for feeding a black market for foreign exchange.