Tigran Gambaryan, a Binance executive who was detained in Nigeria for several months, has shared details of his interaction with EFCC operatives during his time in custody.
In an interview with WIRED, a U.S.-based media outlet, Gambaryan recounted meeting multiple EFCC officials while he was detained and accused of money laundering and tax evasion by the anti-graft agency.
He identified some of the officials he encountered, including Olalekan Ogunjobi, a detective; Hamma Adama Bello, a bearded man in his mid-forties; and Ahmad Sa’ad Abubakar, who was described as the right-hand man to National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu.
Read Also: Moment Man Escaped After He Was Arrested By Police [VIDEO]
Ogunjobi expressed admiration for Gambaryan’s work as a former special agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation, but their relationship soured as his detention continued.
Gambaryan explained that he initially fled Nigeria after Nigerian officials demanded $150 million in cryptocurrency from Binance, which he referred to as a bribery attempt.
He returned to Nigeria after Ogunjobi contacted him to discuss the matter, intending to report the bribery attempt.
However, the EFCC began making further demands, leading to his detention.
Some of the demands included Binance disabling peer-to-peer trading for Nigerian users and providing all its data to the Nigerian government. During his detention, Gambaryan was kept in a house that he later discovered was allocated to the NSA by the government.
Meanwhile, the EFCC sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy stating that Gambaryan was being held for “constructive dialogue” and was “participating willingly in the aforementioned strategic talks.”
Gambaryan was eventually moved to the EFCC’s detention facility, where he was placed in solitary confinement in a cell he described as a box with no windows, a mattress on the wall, and infested with cockroaches.
He also mentioned that the EFCC assured him on two separate occasions that he would be released, but failed to follow through until his release in October, after he became critically ill in detention.
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaihFajBadmT29ufud2Z
