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An American staff member of cryptocurrency exchange Binance who has been detained by Nigerian authorities for nearly six months requires urgent surgery to avoid losing the ability to walk, his family has warned. They say his health has seriously deteriorated and he has been blocked from seeing his lawyers.
Tigran Gambaryan is being held in a high security prison over allegations that Binance is involved in money laundering, which the company denies.
His relatives, in a statement, said a herniated disc in his back “requires highly specialized and risky surgery” to avoid permanent damage that may affect his ability to walk. The family said Gambaryan also needs surgery to remove his tonsils after contracting multiple pneumonia infections in prison.
Gambaryan’s family alleges that the Nigeria Correctional Service has withheld his medical records. And, in a statement issued on Monday, they also said he has been “blocked” from seeing his lawyers since July 26.
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Gambaryan, 40, arrived in Nigeria in February on a work visit to meet with regulators and was subsequently arrested with a colleague who escaped custody in March. He has been held since April in Kuje prison, a facility in Nigeria’s capital where alleged terrorists affiliated with the Boko Haram group have been held in the past.
One charge of tax evasion brought by Nigeria’s tax authority was dropped mid-June about a month after a trial started. But he is still being held to answer to a money laundering charge by the anti-graft body EFCC. His trial court is on recess till September with hearings to continue in October.
Accusing Nigerian officials of an extortion scheme against Binance, members of the US Congress wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June to intervene in Gambaryan’s case. Two congressmen visited him in prison weeks later and the US House of Representatives passed a resolution in July urging “urging the Government of Nigeria to immediately release” him.
Advocates for his cause refer to a decade-long career at the US Internal Revenue Service as a cyber and financial crimes investigator as a mark of his professionalism.
Binance said Gambaryan “is not and has never been a decision-maker” at the company and that he “does not need to be held” for the company to reach a resolution with the Nigerian government, in a statement to Semafor Africa.
Room for Disagreement
A Nigerian prisons desk officer told Semafor Africa that Gambaryan’s “relevant medical details have been given to appropriate superior authorities,” but said the agency’s complaints unit was unaware of allegations that his lawyers were denied a visit. The National Security Adviser’s spokesperson did not comment.
Step Back
Nigeria’s detention of Gambaryan was preceded by the government’s decision to take a hard line stance on cryptocurrency despite initially lifting a three-year ban that aimed at suppressing trading.
Officials in the Bola Tinubu administration and the central bank blamed crypto for a sharp decline in the value of the naira currency at the start of the year. It subsequently ordered telecom operators to block user access to the websites of crypto trading platforms, including Binance. The restriction remains in place.