According to a report from Wired, two Binance executives are being held against their will in Abuja, Nigeria.
The report says Tigran Gambaryan, a former US federal agent who now heads Binance’s criminal investigation team, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, the crypto exchange’s regional manager for Africa, are being held in the Nigerian capital.
According to technology publication Wired, Nigerian authorities have seized the passports of the two Binance managers. According to their families’ accounts, the two are reportedly unaware of any criminal charges against them.
Wired says the two were arrested in late February while on a visit to Abuja. The visit came at the invitation of the Nigerian government and was reportedly aimed at resolving the dispute between Africa’s most populous country and the world’s largest crypto exchange by resolving trading volumes.
According to the report, the two executives “met with Nigerian officials the next day, intending to speak to the government about its order for the country’s telecom companies to block access to Binance and other cryptocurrency exchanges, whose blamed regulators for devaluing the official currency. naira, and for enabling ‘illegal money flows’.
The report says Gambaryan, a US citizen, and Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan national, were taken to a property controlled by Nigeria’s National Security Agency after the initial meeting.
A US State Department official and a British Foreign Office representative visited Gambaryan and Anjarwalla respectively.
Binance is working with Nigeria, but will not reveal why the company’s two executives are being held in the West African country, according to Wired.
“While it is inappropriate for us to comment on the substance of the claims at this time, we can say that we are working with Nigerian authorities to safely return Nadeem and Tigran home to their families.”
Wired quotes Gambaryan’s wife, Yuki Gambaryan, as saying Nigerian authorities have provided little useful information about her husband.
‘There is no definitive answer to anything: how is he doing, what will happen to him when he returns. And the fact that I don’t know that is killing me.”
Don’t miss a beat – Subscribe to receive email alerts straight to your inbox
Check price action
follow us on TweetFacebook and Telegram
Surf to the Daily Hodl mix
Generated image: Midjourney