American Tigran Gambaryan Has Been Helpful To Nigeria Before NSA Ribadu Ambushed Him – Binance
Mary Akanbi
4th April, 2024
In a Wednesday morning statement to Peoples Gazette, Binance said contractor Tigran Gambaryan has been a helpful professional in anti-money laundering and global terrorism financing measures, and his freedom should not be abridged amid the ongoing dust-up between Nigerian authorities and the crypto giant.
“Tigran Gambaryan, an American citizen, is known globally as someone fully dedicated to law enforcement,” a Binance spokesperson said. “For a decade, he served as a U.S. federal agent investigating cases involving national security, terrorism financing, identity theft, distribution of child pornography, tax evasion, and bank secrecy act violations.”
Mr Gambaryan’s team “also provided multiple training sessions for Nigerian crime fighters on the role of exchanges in the digital-asset ecosystem. This included a three-hour online workshop for 70 Nigerian EFCC officials in mid-2023 and, late last year, two full-day sessions for EFCC officials in Abuja and Lagos, with more than 30 investigators attending each of them,” Binance said.
Mr Gambaryan was detained alongside another Binance executive during a visit to Nigeria as part of a follow-up on efforts by both entities to crack down on exploitation of the Nigerian financial system. National security adviser Nuhu Ribadu executed the controversial arrests after Nigeria blamed the crypto exchange for an alleged manipulation that purportedly induced the historic tumble in the national currency. Critics said President Bola Tinubu and his aides were only looking to excuse their confusion and overall incompetence in handling the country’s economy.
Economists directly connected the protracted currency crisis with the raging inflation that has plunged millions further into poverty since Mr Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.
