Kenyan Binance P2P accounts reportedly frozen after DCI/NPS request

An apparent wave of account restrictions on Binance’s peer-to-peer platform has triggered concern in Kenya after local reports said law-enforcement authorities requested the freezing of some user accounts as part of a wider anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering push.

Reports published this week say an undisclosed number of Binance user accounts in Kenya were frozen following action linked to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations. TechCabal reported that senior criminal investigators described the move as part of a wider crackdown on crypto-linked fraud and money laundering, while local reporting in Kenya said some affected users alleged they had received Binance emails stating that their funds were frozen at the request of the DCI by the National Police Service.

That distinction matters because the DCI sits within Kenya’s National Police Service architecture. On its official website, the NPS lists the Directorate of Criminal Investigations as one of its services and states that the DCI’s mandate is to investigate serious criminal cases. In practice, that means the market backlash is focused less on whether law enforcement is involved and more on how the freeze was executed, how broad it is, and what due-process protections affected users have.

The public controversy has been sharpened by uncertainty around scope and legal process. TechCabal said the number of affected accounts has not been disclosed, while local Kenyan reporting said some users claimed their wallets were blocked without formal court orders or charges being presented to them. Those claims have intensified debate over whether the operation reflects targeted criminal enforcement or a wider, more opaque intervention in Kenya’s fast-growing crypto market.

The timing is especially significant because Kenya is no longer dealing with virtual assets in a regulatory vacuum. The Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 was published in the Kenya Gazette on 21 October 2025 and came into force on 4 November 2025, while the National Treasury in March 2026 published draft VASP Regulations and invited public comments through 10 April 2026. In other words, the country is trying to formalise crypto oversight at exactly the same moment that enforcement pressure appears to be rising around peer-to-peer activity.

For the market, the episode is important not only because funds may have been locked, but because it highlights a deeper transition in Kenya’s digital-asset sector. Peer-to-peer channels have long been central to local crypto use, yet they are also the part of the ecosystem most exposed to fraud, informal flows and regulatory suspicion. If the reported Binance freezes are indeed part of a broader DCI operation, the case may mark one of the clearest signs yet that Kenya is moving from crypto adoption to harder enforcement and surveillance of how that market actually functions.