Top Binance executives set for money laundering trial in Nigeria amid global crypto chaos
Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is gearing up to arraign top officials of Binance Holdings Ltd, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, over allegations of money laundering and tax evasion.
The EFCC has levelled five counts of money laundering totalling over $35.4 million against Binance and its executives.
The trial is scheduled to commence on April 4, 2024, at the Federal High Court (FHC) in Abuja, under the jurisdiction of Justice Emeka Nwite, local media reports.
However, Anjarwalla, a British Kenyan who is Binance's regional manager for Africa, managed to escape lawful police custody on March 22 and is now set to be tried in absentia.
Initially detained after their first court appearance on March 20, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla were expected to remain in custody for two weeks.
Among the charges levelled against Binance is the allegation that the company conducted specialised businesses without a valid license during its operations in Nigeria from January 2023 to January 2024.
The world of crypto trading seems to be in turmoil as its biggest pioneers have found themselves embroiled in legal battles.
Recent events include the arrest of HyperVerse crypto promoter Rodney Burton by U.S. security services, accused of being a part of a network that initiated 'fraudulent' presentations to unsuspecting individuals promising high returns to investors and purportedly backed by non-existent crypto-mining operations.
There is also the case of Sam Bankman-Fried who is serving a 25-year jail term for defrauding customers and investors of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Under U.S. federal sentencing guidelines, Bankman-Fried was looking at a potential sentence of up to 110 years. However, the prosecution urged presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan to impose a prison term of 40 to 50 years on Bankman-Fried for what they labelled as a "historic fraud".
