The country’s authorities are pursuing a crypto exchange for money laundering, terrorist financing and devaluation of the national currency.

The National Security Council (NSC) office on Monday confirmed that Nadeem Anjarwalla, a suspect in the criminal investigation into Binance in Nigeria, has escaped from custody.

The head of strategic communications at the council’s office, Zachary Mijinyawa, said Mr Anjarwalla fled on Friday 22 March. […]

Our sources said Mr. Anjarwalla, 38, fled on Friday (March 23) from Abuja, where he and his colleague were staying guardedafter guards took him to a nearby mosque to pray during the ongoing Ramadan fast.

In a statement on Monday afternoon, Mr Mijinyawa confirmed Premium Times message.

He explained that upon receiving the report of the escape of Mr. Anjarwalla, the NSS office took immediate steps in collaboration with relevant security agencies, ministries and departments, as well as the international community to apprehend the suspect. Security agencies are working with Interpol to obtain an international arrest warrant for the suspect, he said.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that Mr. Anjarwalla fled Nigeria using a concealed passport,” the statement said.

“The officers responsible for the suspect’s custody have been arrested and a thorough investigation is currently underway to establish the circumstances that led to his escape from his lawful detention.”

“As a reminder, the Federal Government of Nigeria, like other governments around the world, is investigating money laundering and terrorist financing transactions occurring on the Binance currency exchange platform.”

Prior to his escape, Mr Anjarwalla, who holds British and Kenyan citizenship and is Binance’s country manager for Africa, appeared in a Nigerian court. The suspect escaped while under 14-day detention in a Nigerian court. He was due to appear in court again on April 4.

“We call on the Nigerian public and the international community to provide any information they have that may help law enforcement agencies apprehend the suspect,” Mr. Mijinyawa said.

As a US federal agent, Tigran Ghambaryan helped lead landmark investigations that caught cryptocurrency thieves and money launderers, dark web drug traffickers and child exploiters. Now, in his post-government role at the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, he himself has become the target of a very different kind of federal crypto-crime. He and another Binance executive were detained by Nigerian authorities.

Since February 26, Gambarian, who now heads Binance’s criminal investigations team, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, Binance’s regional manager for Africa based in Kenya, have had their passports taken away and are being held at a government facility in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. None of them have been charged, their family members said. According to the Financial Times, which first reported the detention of the two executives without naming them, they appear to be caught up in Nigeria’s sweeping move to ban cryptocurrency exchanges amid a sharp devaluation of the country’s currency.

“There is no definite answer: how is he doing, what will happen to him when he returns,” says Gambaryan’s wife Yuki Gambaryan. “And this uncertainty is killing.”

Gambarian, a US citizen, and Anjarwalla, a dual British-Kenyan citizen, arrived in Abuja on February 25, their families say, at the invitation of the Nigerian government to resolve an ongoing dispute with Binance. They met with Nigerian officials the next day, intending to talk to the government about its order to the country’s telecommunications companies to block access to Binance and other cryptocurrency exchanges, which regulators accuse of devaluing the country’s official currency, the naira, and allowing “illegal flows” of funds.

However, after Gambarian and Anjarwalla’s first meeting with the Nigerian government, Gambarian and Anjarwalla were taken to their hotels, told to pack their belongings and put up in a “guest house” that their families said was run by the Nigerian National Security Agency. They confiscated their passports and kept them in this house against their will.

According to relatives, Gambarian was visited by a representative of the US State Department, and Anjarwalla was visited by a representative of the British Foreign Office, but security from the Nigerian government was also present at these meetings, preventing them from speaking in private.

When WIRED contacted Binance, a company spokesperson declined to comment on what the men or the company itself are accused of, or what demands the Nigerian government might make for their release. “While it is not appropriate for us to comment on the nature of the claims at this time, we can say that we are working with the Nigerian authorities to return Nadim and Tigran home to their families safe and sound,” a Binance spokesperson told WIRED. “We will provide them with all possible support.” We believe that this issue will be resolved quickly.”

At some point last week, both men were transferred to a local hospital after Anjarwalla fell ill. His symptoms were unclear, but his wife said they may have indicated malaria. However, he has since recovered and both men were returned to the same house where they were held.

For Gambaryan in particular, becoming an obvious pawn in a dispute between Binance and an aggrieved government is an ironic twist. Gambaryan’s high-profile appointment as head of Binance’s investigations team in 2021 was widely seen as an attempt to cleanse the exchange of dirty money flows, better comply with regulations and work more closely with law enforcement. Late in November last year, Binance agreed to a deal with US prosecutors that would have seen it pay a record $4.3 billion for money laundering and face scrutiny from US regulators.

Prior to taking his position at Binance, Gambarian was well known in the law enforcement world for his track record of pioneering cryptocurrency cases as an agent with the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). For example, from 2014 to 2017, Gambaryan led the investigation into two corrupt federal agents who stole cryptocurrency from the shadowy marketplace Silk Road and sold secret law enforcement information to its creator, and worked to track 650,000 bitcoins stolen from the Mt. Gox, helped develop a cryptocurrency tracking method to find the server running the massive crime market AlphaBay, and had a hand in taking down the Welcome to Video cryptocurrency network containing child sex abuse material.

During his years with IRS-CI, Gambarian was a “first-class agent” with “the highest integrity,” according to Will Frentzen, a former prosecutor who worked closely with Gambarian. “The cases he was involved in are the list of the biggest cryptocurrency cases of the time,” says Frentzen. “He was innovative in prosecuting cases that few people in the country had thought of, and incredibly unselfish in terms of who gets rewarded.”

Gambaryan’s wife, Yuki, citing this record, argues that her husband has earned the support of the US government, which, she says, should now help negotiate his freedom. “He did so much good for this country during his career,” she says.

Anjarwalla, an Oxford- and Stanford-educated government relations specialist at Binance, joined the cryptocurrency company a year ago. His wife, Elahe Anjarwalla, wrote in a statement that he is a “mid-level Binance employee with no decision-making authority.” She adds that Anjarwalla, a Muslim, is in custody during Ramadan; that their baby son had gotten his first tooth in the past two weeks; and that their baby will reach his first birthday next week. “Nadeem is a loving husband and father. He is my best friend,” she says. “All I want is for Nadeem to be allowed to come home to us.” […]