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Nigeria drops charges against Binance official

Oct 23, 2024, 12:35pm EDT
africa
Reuters/ Abraham Achirga
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The News

A Nigerian court has ordered the release of Tigran Gambaryan, the Binance executive imprisoned in the country since February, after prosecutors dropped charges against him.

Gambaryan had been charged with laundering more than $35 million in connection to a case against the crypto trading platform Binance, which the government blamed for destabilizing its currency.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) withdrew the case against Gambaryan and said the decision would allow him to access medical treatment abroad. Gambaryan and his family had previously raised concerns over his deteriorating health while at Nigeria’s Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja.

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The commission plans to proceed with the case against Binance without Gambaryan in the dock. Both Gambaryan and Binance had denied all charges brought against them in separate proceedings.

Without offering details, EFCC lawyer Ekele Ihenacho disclosed that diplomatic arrangements had played a role in securing Gambaryan’s release. Gambaryan is a US citizen and former law enforcement officer, who was working as head of financial crimes compliance at Binance at the time of his arrest.

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Know More

In its tax evasion case against Binance, Nigeria is seeking $10 billion in penalties. It accuses the crypto platform of facilitating the flow of around $26 billion in untraceable funds in 2023, which purportedly contributed to the naira falling to record lows against the dollar.

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Tigran Gambaryan and a colleague, Nadeem Anjarwalla, were detained by authorities in Nigeria during a visit to the country in February. Anjarwalla, however, reportedly escaped from the country using a “smuggled passport.”

The two executives were dropped by Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service in June as defendants in the tax evasion case, but continued to face separate money laundering charges alongside Binance.

Gambaryan had been denied bail for a second time on Friday, Oct. 11 by the High Court in Abuja as the trial on money laundering charges started. A judge ruled that the prison in which the executive was being held was capable of meeting his medical needs.

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The United States had reportedly been lobbying over several months for the release of the executive.

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The View From Washington DC

The US State department and lawmakers had been intensifying pressure on the Nigerian government to release the Binance official in recent weeks. On the same day as the release was confirmed, the State Department announced that it was reaffirming its commitment to a close partnership with Nigeria and the US Department of Justice to help pursue cybercrime investigations and prosecutions. “To accelerate that cooperation, the United States and Nigeria are launching a Bilateral Liaison Group on Illicit Finance and Cryptocurrencies.”


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