Richard Teng, the CEO of Binance, has called for the release of Tigran Gambaryan, the Binance official who has been held in Nigeria since late February 2024 facing accusations related to illicit transaction gains.
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"You cannot run a company with over 10 million Nigerians on your platform without paying tax and having a physical office where Nigerians can lodge their… pic.twitter.com/axfb510BwB
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) March 9, 2024
Binance is currently embroiled in separate legal proceedings related to tax evasion and money laundering allegations involving two of its executives.
According to Teng who took over in December 2023 from founder ChangPeng Zhao, it was time to speak out against the detention of Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance Head of Financial Crime Compliance.
“To invite a company’s mid-level employees for collaborative policy meetings, only to detain them, has set a dangerous new precedent for all companies worldwide.
“The message from the Nigerian government is clear,” the Binance’s Chief Executive added.
“We must detain an innocent, mid-level employee and a former U.S. federal agent, and place him in a dangerous prison in order to control Binance.”
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Gambaryan is set to be held in Kuje Correctional Centre until the determination of his bail application on April 18 2024. The judge has adjourned the case to May 2 2024 for the… pic.twitter.com/6bxUcQGv4A
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) April 9, 2024
In his statement, he revealed that around February 2024 they began hearing concerns that the P2P NGN prices from merchant advertisements had influenced the country’s foreign exchange rate.
Binance’s P2P team engaged with the local community. What we learned was that due to the lack of official reference FX prices in Nigeria, people in Nigeria, including crypto and non-crypto players, were using the price averages of the P2P advertisements as a source of FX rate reference.”
While the P2P market advertisement price (quotation price) is real-time and moves along with the market, it is not always a reflection of the actual traded price. Binance has no role in setting the P2P prices: in fact, P2P transactions are driven by individuals seeking to engage in direct buying and selling of particular crypto-to-crypto or fiat-to-crypto pairs. It’s essentially a marketplace for crypto.”
Gambaryan alongside Regional Africa head, Nadeem Anjarwalla, travelled to Nigeria on February 26 2024 where they met with leaders from:
- ONSA
- The office of the President
- The Central Bank of Nigeria
- NFIU
- EFCC
- SEC Nigeria
The meetings however took a hostile turn when they were detained with officials seeking three conditions for their release::
-
Delist Naira from the Binance platform
-
Provide granular-level detail on all Nigerian users
-
Provide financial/tax compliance information
Binance stopped cryptocurrency trades with the Naira but received no communication from government officials, according to Teng.
🇳🇬REGULATION | Binance Discontinues All Naira Services Starting in March 2024
Naira deposits ceased after March 5 2024 with withdrawals stopping on March 8 2024.
Authorities have alleged that Binance benefited from ‘illegal transactions’ to the value of $26 billion.… pic.twitter.com/jKZ90I70ie
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) March 7, 2024
“Our hope when we took this drastic step was that our colleagues would be released and Binance could continue to work with the Nigerian government to resolve any further concerns. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”
While Anjarwalla escaped detention and is thought to be in Kenya, things became worse for his colleague who has now been detained for more than 70 days.
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