Six months after being released from a prison in Nigeria, Tigran Gambaryan, responsible for compliance with financial crimes at Binance, returns to his trying experience. Accused of money laundering, he spent eight months of detention, marked by illness, isolation and uncertainty. A prison hell from which he believed he never came out alive.
A two -day mission that runs in the nightmare
In February 2024, Tigran Gambaryan, responsible for compliance with financial crimes at Binance, went to Abuja, the Nigerian capital. He has a clear mission: to discuss allegations with local authorities that Binance operated illegally in the country.
But nothing went as planned. Tuesday, April 1, 2025, he told his ordeal at the Links 2025 conference in Chainalysis in New York. “It had to be a two -day trip”but everything changes when arrested, with a colleague on the second day.
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Tigran Gambaryan and his colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla are placed under house arrest by the government. A month later, in March, Nadeem Anjarwalla managed to escape, taking advantage of an outing for Ramadan prayer. He leaves behind his colleague, who then became the main scapegoat of the Nigerian authorities in their conflict with Binance, in a house that does not even have electricity.
The latter accuse the platform of having destabilized the Naira, the local currency, which lost more than 90 % of its value at the beginning of 2024. Tigran Gambaryan is also charged to have allegedly bleached more than $ 35 million.
In reality, he was not arrested for facts that he would have committed personally, but as representative of Binance.
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A prison hell and health problems
Quickly, Gambaryan was transferred to Kuje prison, a infamous establishment sheltering criminals and terrorists. He describes an environment worthy of a nightmare: “Imagine the worse possible place. No running water, no air conditioning, no showers. »»
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Under these conditions, his health inevitably deteriorates. Over the weeks, He contracts malaria, a double pneumonia and suffers from a herniated disc. The accumulation of diseases and the lack of care grows it to the extreme. “” I almost died twice “, He says.
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During a court hearing in Abuja, Tigran Gambaryan collapsed before the judges. It was only under pressure from the American authorities, after a visit to two members of the Congress in June, that Nigerian prosecutors abandon the charges in October. Gambaryan is finally authorized to return to the United States to receive care.
Source : DL News
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