The Federal Government of Nigeria has denied the allegations made by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Binance Holding Ltd, Richard Teng who alleged that government authority demanded $150 million bribery from him.
The Special Assistant to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Rabiu Ibrahim, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.
Recall that it was recently reported yesterday, 7th May that Teng alleged that Nigerian authorities demanded the sum of $150million in cryptocurrency as a bribe to make the money laundering trial initiated against two of its executives, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, to go away.
These two above, Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and head of financial crime and Anjarwalla, a British Kenyan, are currently facing trial for laundering more than $35 million in Nigeria.
Reacting to the above allegations levelled against the government, Ibrahim said the claim is an orchestrated attempt by Binance to undermine the Nigerian government.
The spokesperson also said the allegations by Binance CEO lacks “any iota of substance,” and it is attempted to “blackmail” the government.
“In a blog post that has now been published by many international media organisations, in an apparent well-coordinated public relations effort, Binance Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng made false allegations of bribery against unidentified Nigerian government officials who he claimed demanded $150m in cryptocurrency payments to resolve the ongoing criminal investigation against the company”
“this claim by Binance CEO lacks any iota of substance. It is nothing but a diversionary tactic and an attempted act of blackmail by a company desperate to obfuscate the grievous criminal charges it is facing in Nigeria”
“The facts of this matter remain that Binance is being investigated in Nigeria for allowing its platform to be used for money laundering, terrorism financing, and foreign exchange manipulation through illegal trading,” Ibrahim said.
The federal government continued by saying that it can never said it will can never succumb to “blackmail”, insisting that the cryptocurrency firm must submit itself to the Nigeria authorities for investigation.
