Binance: Collaboration with SEC, EFCC, NSA fruitful — CBN Gov

CBN Governor, Cardoso

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, said yesterday it was the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to regulate cryptocurrency transactions in the country, and not the responsibility of the apex bank.

This came as a former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, DSS, Dennis Amachree, said the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, was not a security agency with no detention facility and should have transfered the fleeing Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, or the DSS for custody.

Recall that the NSA declared a manhunt for the fleeing Binance executive, Anjarwalla, who escaped from his detention centre and fled the country.

Speaking on the issue at the apex bank’s 294th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, yesterday, the CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, said collaboration with SEC, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, had been yielding positive outcomes in the last one month.

The apex bank chief was responding to a question on CBN’s update on crypto exchange platform, Binance, which has come under  the intense clampdown of the federal government since the last MPC meeting in February when Cardoso said $26billion suspicious flows passed through Binance last year.

Cardoso said yesterday:  “We consider ourselves as having the wherewithal to collaborate with other agencies of government and that is a very important function for us.

“About a month ago, we actually did have collaboration with law enforcement agencies, EFCC, the SEC and other regulatory bodies as well, and what came out of that is a work in progress but very positive as far as I can say.

“We’ve been sharing information with the NSA. However, in this particular case, the responsibility for regulating cryptocurrency is not our role, it isn’t ours; it is strictly that of the Security and Exchange Commission, not our responsibility.”

Last month, the NSA office detained two Binance executives who were in the country to hold talks with the government.

One of the suspects, Nadeem Anjarwalla, however, escaped from lawful custody and the government has since launched a manhunt for him, contacting the Interpol.

Meanwhile, former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, DSS, Dennis Amachree, said also yesterday that the Office of the National Security Adviser, NSA, was not a security agency with detention facility and should have transfered the fleeing Binance executive to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, or the secret police for custody.

Amachree, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme late Monday, said the suspect and his colleague at the cryptocurrency exchange platform, Tigran Gambaryan, should have been watch-listed when they were detained in Abuja late February.

He said Anjarwalla and Gambaryan should have been placed on watchlist with the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, with their photos and names flagged at all airports across the country.

Amachree said:  “If the man has been flagged as a threat or a suspected person, he should have been watchlisted.  I don’t know whether the NSA has a detention facility. The NSA is an advisory body to the President.

”So, if he (NSA Nuhu Ribadu) felt that the suspects should be remanded, he should have sent them to the EFCC or the DSS to keep until the date of the court but to keep them in a guest house where he has access to telephone is wrong?

“For them now to allow him to go and pray? I think there are a lot of loopholes and lapses there. We have held heads of state in detention and they prayed where they live and eat and sleep. So, I don’t see why this particular guy will be allowed to go to the nearest mosque to pray and dissapear.”