Binance accuses the Nigerian government of arresting its executives through the Hongmen Banquet, saying this is a dangerous precedent

The Nigerian government has previously arrested two executives from cryptocurrency exchange Binance.One of the executives has escaped from prison and run awaywhile another executive is currently under strict guard awaiting trial.

Originally, when there were problems between governments around the world and cryptocurrency exchanges, they would be resolved through communication. The worst result would be to ban Binance from operating locally. This is not a particularly new thing for Binance.

However, the Nigerian government is an exception. The country took the initiative to invite Binance executives to Nigeria for talks on operational policy issues. Unexpectedly, this was a banquet. The two executives were arrested as soon as they landed, and the promised release within 20 days was still far away.

Richard Teng, who succeeded Changpeng Zhao as the CEO of Binance today, issued an article accusing the Nigerian government of untrustworthy behavior. Richard believes that the Nigerian government's behavior has set a dangerous precedent, that is, using meetings as a reason to lure corporate managers and then illegally detain them.

Currently detained in Nigeria is Binance’s head of financial crimes compliance, Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and former IRS investigator.Currently accused of tax evasion in Nigeriais awaiting trial in court.

Binance believes that the accusations made by the Nigerian authorities are completely unfounded. At the same time, Gambaryan is not the main person in charge of Binance. Even if the Nigerian authorities need to investigate, their executives should not be arrested.

The Nigerian side believes that since Gambaryan and Anjarwalla (the one who has escaped from jail) came to Nigeria for talks on behalf of Binance, they can be deemed to be the person in charge of Binance and should be responsible for Binance’s illegal activities in Nigeria.

So now the two sides are still in a stalemate, and Nigeria also plans to fine Binance $10 billion to compensate Binance for its illegal operations in the country, which led to the collapse of the exchange rate of Nigeria’s official currency, the Naira (NGN), and the illegal outflow of a large number of funds.