Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has expressed concern over illicit cash flow, saying over $26 billion passed through Binance in the past year.

Mr Cardoso disclosed this on Tuesday at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja. 

It was his first MPC since he assumed office.

“We are concerned that certain practices go on that indicate illicit flows going through a number of these entities,” Mr Cardoso said. In the case of Binance, in the last one year, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify,” stated the CBN governor.

Mr Cardoso expressed the apex bank’s determination “to do everything it takes to take charge of our market and not allow others manipulate our market.”

The CBN governor’s statement came a week after the world’s biggest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance and other crypto trading platforms were blocked to Nigerian users.

Binance confirmed that the blockage affected only its users accessing the platform via its website, noting that its app was still functioning for users to access the platform. 

In the past week, federal authorities clamped down on cryptocurrency platforms while raiding bureaux de change nationwide to stabilise the declining Nigerian naira.

The ban on Binance came less than two months after the Federal Government lifted the ban on the cryptocurrency platform. 

Binance confirmed working with the federal government to block dollar-naira trading on the platform.