According to Nigerian authorities, an executive of the cryptocurrency firm Binance has escaped from custody in Nigeria after he and another executive were detained last week.
Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan dual national, was arrested in February with his US colleague Tigran Gambaryan as Nigerian authorities investigated alleged wrongdoing by Binance.
Nigeria said that Mr Anjarwalla fled the country with a “smuggled passport”, but a family source has said he had left by “by lawful means“.
The country is now “working with Interpol for an international arrest warrant on the suspect“, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) said in a statement.
Mr Gambaryan remains in custody.
“We were made aware that Nadeem is no longer in Nigerian custody. Our primary focus remains on the safety of our employees and we are working collaboratively with Nigerian authorities to quickly resolve this issue,” a Binance spokesperson said.
Mr Anjarwalla, the company’s Africa regional manager, and Mr Gambaryan, in charge of financial crime compliance at the firm, were arrested on 26 February after attending meetings in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to which they had been invited by the government.
The authorities reportedly demanded that they name Nigerians trading on their platform.
A court granted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s request to detain the two executives for 14 days, but their continued detention was not authorised by the court and they were being held “unlawfully“.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service is accusing the cryptocurrency platform of non-payment of value-added tax, company income tax, failure to file tax returns, and complicity in aiding customers to evade taxes through its platform.
Nigeria’s central bank alleged that over $26 billion worth of transactions had passed through Binance with untraceable sources.
It accused the platforms of fixing exchange rates and currency speculation leading to the free-fall of the naira, the local currency, and ordered the firm to pay a fine of $10 billion.
