The Nigerian government has frozen more than $37 million worth of cryptocurrency held in wallets believed to be owned by some organisers of #EndBadGovernance protests, Premium Times is reporting.
The freezing followed an order by the Federal High Court in Abuja. The judge, Emeka Nwite, gave the order in a ruling delivered on 9 July, a copy of the decision seen by PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday shows. Mr Nwite issued the order based on an application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In the ex parte application filed on 8 August and heard by the court on the following day, the EFCC described the assets as proceeds of money laundering and terrorism financing.
There was no objection to the application during the hearing, which was an exchange of views between the judge and EFCC’s lawyer, O.S Ujam.
“That an order of this honourable court is hereby made freezing the wallet addresses/accounts stated in the schedule below, which wallets are owned by individuals currently being investigated for offences of money laundering and terrorism financing, pending the conclusion of the investigation,” Mr Nwite ruled shortly after listening to the applicant’s lawyer.
The wallet with the lion’s share of the assets has USDT 37 million (37,061,867,869.3) cryptocurrency, which equals the exact value in American US dollars. The three other wallets each have USDT 967, USDT 90, USDT 443,512.37.
The agency did not reveal the identities of the wallet owners in its application.
However, insiders briefed about the case informed our reporter that the federal government traced them to suspected organisers of the #EndBadGovernance protests.
Source: PREMIUM TIMES
