Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency has withdrawn its case against Tigran Gambarian. The Binance executive has been detained in Nigeria since February.
Prosecutors in Nigeria on Wednesday dropped criminal charges against Binance executive Tigran Gambarian, who has been imprisoned in the African country since February.
At the court hearing, a lawyer representing Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said Gambarian could not be prosecuted for illegal activities at Binance based on the proceedings he oversaw. News.
Justice Emeka Nwite accepted the withdrawal of the government’s case.
It is unclear whether Gambarian, a US citizen, was immediately released and allowed to visit the US embassy. With no other charges against him, it appears he is free to return to the US as soon as possible.
The EECC has not withdrawn its case against Binance, which has denied wrongdoing. That trial is scheduled to begin in November.
Eight months of hardship
Wednesday’s dramatic decision appears to end an ordeal for Gambarian, a 40-year-old former US federal agent who heads Binance’s financial crime compliance team.
It also comes as Gambarian has been battling a number of health issues, including an injured back and malaria.
Last week, the Binance man failed to appear in court for a hearing in his trial.
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Since Gambarian and colleague Nadeem Anjarwala were arrested in the Nigerian capital Abuja in February, Binance and Gambarian’s family have been pleading with authorities to drop what they call a trumped-up case against him.
In June, two members of the US House of Representatives visited Gambarian in Abuja’s Kuje Prison and reported that he was in poor health. He urged Nigeria to release him immediately.
The Biden administration has put pressure on Nigeria
During the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the international body, also came to his aid.
She told Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Yusuf Tugger, that resolving the Gambian plight was critical to US relations with Africa’s most populous nation.
Gambarian was swept up in a bitter dispute between the EFCC and the Nigerian Central Bank and officials at Binance, the world’s top crypto exchange.
Earlier in the year, Nigerian authorities blamed Binance for tanking its fiat currency, the naira, by allowing a digital version of the currency to be manipulated on its site on a large scale.
Without a license in Nigeria, Binance was exposed, so the company sent Gambarian from his home base in Atlanta, Georgia, to Abuja for talks with government officials.
Gambarian was joined by a British lawyer named Anjarwala, who was Binance’s top official in Kenya. The two men landed in Abuja and engaged the authorities so they were placed under house arrest and their passports confiscated.
In March, Anjarwala managed to evade his guards during a prayer service at a mosque and flew out of Nigeria using a Kenyan passport he had hidden.
Nigerian authorities arranged for an Interpol red notice to be issued for Anjarwala, but he has not surfaced since his escape.
Meanwhile, Gambarian experienced the full force of the Nigerian justice system. He was charged with money laundering and tax evasion, as was Binance, and is being held pending a trial that does not begin until May.
Bail refused
Gambarian pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. From the start, his attorney, Mark Mordi, called the case against his client a “state-sponsored hostage-taking.”
He urged prosecutors to admit that Gambarian was merely a compliance executive and had no strategic decision-making authority and was not responsible for Binance’s corporate actions.
On Wednesday, lawyers finally agreed.
This is an evolving story.
Osato Awan-Nomayo Our Nigeria based DeFi representative. He covers DeFi and technology. To share tips or information about articles, please contact him here [email protected].
