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Nigeria dropped charges of tax evasion against two Binance executives on Friday, focusing allegations of unfiled returns and unpaid duty on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
The charges against the two men, Tigran Gambaryan, a US citizen, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a dual UK-Kenya citizen, were dropped but the case against Binance continued, Nigeria’s tax agency said.
Binance, through its local delegate, will now be the sole defendant in the tax evasion case brought by the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
Both men were detained in February after arriving in Nigeria to meet authorities after Africa’s most populous country began a clampdown on cryptocurrency trading websites it blamed for a dramatic slump in the value of its local naira currency.
Pressure on Nigeria to release Gambaryan, a former US Internal Revenue Service special agent, has been growing in Washington in recent weeks after reports that he was suffering from malaria.
Last week a group of US lawmakers called on President Joe Biden to secure his release as they feared for his life, and accused Nigeria of holding Gambaryan “hostage” and charged with “baseless” crimes.
The country has strongly denied the allegations. Last week Mohammed Idris, Nigeria’s information minister, said “at all stages, due process has been followed, and prosecutors are confident of their case, based on the facts and evidence gathered”.
However, Gambaryan, who heads Binance’s financial crime compliance unit, and Anjarwalla, who is a regional manager for Africa at Binance, still face money laundering charges brought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the country’s anti-corruption agency.
They were charged with laundering more than $35mn and operating without a licence. The next hearings in the case are set to take place on June 19 and 20. Gambaryan has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him while Anjarwalla has not commented on the charges.
The Binance executives were held in a guest house in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, adjacent to the national security adviser’s office, with their phones and passports seized.
Binance said on Friday the decision showed Gambaryan is “not a decision maker at Binance and does not need to be held in order for Binance to resolve issues with the Nigerian government. We await the court’s ruling on this, discharging Tigran from this matter completely.”
But after Anjarwalla escaped in March, Gambaryan was moved to the notorious Kuje prison, where terrorists from Islamist insurgent groups are housed. Gambaryan’s family said on Friday that his condition had since worsened and he has developed pneumonia.
Anjarwalla, who is believed to be in Kenya according to people familiar with the matter, left Nigeria by “by lawful means”, his family told the Financial Times at the time.
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