Efe Nail Saltık 
According to local media reports over the weekend, one of the two senior executives from Binance who were in government custody has reportedly escaped. Nigeria’s tax authority has reportedly filed charges of tax evasion against Binance, as reported by local news outlets on Monday.
These charges follow a tense period in which two top executives of the cryptocurrency exchange were detained by authorities.
It’s been reported by local media that one of these executives managed to escape and may have left the country.
Binance, known as the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been accused of tax evasion by Nigerian authorities amidst escalating tensions between the exchange and the government, local media sources reported on Monday, citing a statement from the country’s tax regulatory body.
The charges, which also involve two Binance executives currently detained by the government, were announced by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and submitted at the Federal High Court in Abuja, according to one report.
The accusations against the exchange include four counts of tax evasion, encompassing “failure to pay Value-Added Tax (VAT), Company Income Tax, failure to file tax returns, and involvement in facilitating customers to evade taxes via its platform.”
The revelation of these charges comes after weeks of scrutiny and condemnation of the cryptocurrency exchange by the Nigerian government, which even went as far as inviting and subsequently detaining two Binance executives. Allegations against the platform include processing billions of dollars’ worth of suspected illicit funds and establishing an exchange rate for the local currency, the naira.
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