The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Binance, a popular cryptocurrency trading platform, Richard Teng, has claimed that some unknown persons sought a bribe of cryptocurrency from its executives, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, before their detention on February 28, 2024.
Teng stated as much in a blog entry published on Binance’s website on Tuesday.
The post described how, prior to being charged with crimes, the executives of Binance attempted to interact with Nigerian authorities, including a meeting on January 8 in Abuja.
He stated that the gathering with the Nigerian government was arranged by a committee made up of roughly “thirty agencies.”
He mentioned that the committee stressed how serious the meeting was and that they were prepared to issue arrest warrants and impose travel restrictions on Binance’s team.
But it turned out that the committee doesn’t really have the power to issue arrest warrants. Teng said that the meeting was subsequently rescheduled for January 11, 2024.
He said: “The meeting ended with the Chair confirming they would consider the matter and revert through Binance’s local counsel.
“However, as our employees were leaving the venue, they were approached by unknown persons who suggested to them to make a payment in settlement of the allegations.
Read Also:
“Later that day, our local counsel — representing us at that time — was summoned by the Committee through someone purporting to be their agent, who relayed the Committee’s terms and instructed our local counsel to advise us.
“Counsel reported back that he had been presented with a demand for a significant payment in cryptocurrency to be paid in secret within 48 hours to make these issues go away and that our decision was expected by the morning.
“Our team grew increasingly concerned about their safety in Nigeria and immediately departed.”
Teng said the payment request was declined “via our counsel, not viewing it to be a legitimate settlement offer”.
The News Digest had reported how Nigeria officials detained two senior Binance executives.
The two officials—39-year-old US citizen Gambaryan, who serves as Binance’s head of financial crime compliance and is British-Kenyan Anjarwalla, 37, who is Binance’s regional manager for Africa—arrived in Nigeria in reaction to the nation’s recent crackdown on various cryptocurrency trading platforms.
Their passports were seized when they were detained by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) during their visit.
Anjarwalla, one of the executives, later escaped from legitimate custody, according to an ONSA statement released on March 24.
The Federal Government has stated that it is in talks with Interpol to obtain Anjarwalla an international arrest warrant so that he can be extradited to Nigeria.
