Binance ‘made aware’ of executive who fled Nigeria

Binance is also reportedly facing tax evasion charges from the country

article-image

168 STUDIO/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

An executive detained by Nigeria for weeks escaped custody on Friday. 

Nadeem Anjarwalla, the regional manager for Africa, was detained in late February alongside Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, Tigran Gambrayan. 

Neither executive has been charged with a crime. A Nigerian court last week decided to postpone a decision on a detention extension until April 5, according to a representative for the executives. 

Binance, in a statement to Blockworks, confirmed that it had been “made aware” that Anjarwalla was 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.

Binance told Blockworks in mid-March that it was hoping for a “swift resolution” to the detention of Anjarwalla and Gambrayan. 

Read more: Binance’s woes in Nigeria continue to mount

Bloomberg reported Monday morning that Nigeria also filed tax evasion charges against Binance. According to a statement seen by the publication, Binance was accused of “nonpayment of value-added tax and company income tax, failure to file tax returns and complicity in aiding customers to evade taxes” through the platform.

Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service didn’t immediately return a request for comment to confirm the charges. Binance didn’t return a request for comment on the charges.

Nigeria targeted Binance in late February, alleging that $26 billion had been passed through Binance Nigeria, according to the country’s central bank governor. Binance then ended support for the Naira in early March.

Officials in the country previously said that they were weighing fines against the crypto exchange. One official, in an interview with BBC’s pidgin language service, even said that the government was looking at a $10 billion fine. However, Binance told local media that it was not in talks with the government over a fine of that sum.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

Firedancer begins delegating stake to Solana validators

article-image

A vote ending Monday could introduce a new layer of security for Ethereum’s largest liquid staking protocol

article-image

Framework’s Michael Anderson explains what tokens need in order to be successful

article-image

Conferences are pop-up innovation clusters—and filters for the riff-raff

article-image

Tariff front-running may have caused an artificial bounce in economic data earlier this year

article-image

Waka Flocka Flame-linked BaseDrop is raising some eyebrows