In the midst of Nigeria’s push against Binance and cryptocurrency, two Binance executives were detained by Nigerian authorities. Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance's Head of Financial Crime Compliance, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan who is Binance's regional manager for Africa, flew to Nigeria after the government decided to ban several cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance. Tigran and Nadeem were detained on arrival on Feb. 26 when they landed in Lagos, Nigeria.

Despite being detained, they have not been charged for a crime under Nigerian law. They have been detained past the standard 14-day detention without being granted freedom. Binance lawyers have stated that there is no grounds for further detention.

The Nigerian Government has been cracking down on cryptocurrency exchanges as the Nigerian Naira falls at a concerning rate, prompting citizens to opt for cryptocurrency to protect themselves from their own native currency. The Nigerian Naira has fallen -44% against the US dollar since the start of this year. Nigeria has been open to their ban on cryptocurrency since February 2021 by barring banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating transactions in crypto assets, citing money laundering and terrorism financing risks.

Binance has been taking heat from the Nigerian government as they have been demanded to provide $10 billion dollars as a penalty after central bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso claims that the trading volume of Binance had enabled $26 billion of untraceable funds to leave the country as it faces a foreign exchange crisis and is looking for ways to restrict capital outflows. However, it has been later clarified that there has yet to be discussions on the amount of reparations to the Nigerian government by Binance according to the presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale.

The Nigerian government has also requested Binance for the transaction history of Nigerian users in the past 6 months. This ensues the ongoing crackdown of cryptocurrency as the Nigerian government aims to track down the top 100 Nigerian users on Binance.