Binance has said that its employee, Tigran Gambaryan, currently in detention in Nigeria, is not part of its management team and doesn’t have decision-making power.
“Binance respectfully requests that Tigran Gambaryan, who has no decision-making power in the company, is not held responsible while current discussions are ongoing between Binance and Nigerian government officials,” Binance said in a statement shared with a local newspaper.
As per media reports, after their detention in February, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) asked Binance to provide data on its top 100 users in Nigeria and all transaction history for the past six months.
The Nigerian authorities invited Binance’s law enforcement officer Tigran Gambaryan and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla after banning the Binance website and then detained on suspicion of being involved in money laundering activities in February.
Gambaryan is an American citizen and a former US Federal Agent, while Anjarwalla is a British-Kenya dual citizen. Both were detained at an undisclosed location by the Nigerian authorities. Anjarwalla managed to escape and fled the country allegedly using a forged passport. Nigeria formally approached Interpol and issued an arrest warrant to locate and arrest Anjarwalla.
