The Nigerian government found Binance director Nadeem Arjarwalla in Kenya after he escaped from custody and is now taking steps to extradite him back to Nigeria.
According to a report by local media outlet Punch, sources in the office of the Nigerian presidency revealed that Arjarwalla went into hiding after arriving in Kenya.
The Nigerian government is working with Interpol and the Kenyan police to bring Arjarwalla back to Nigeria so he can face charges.
Anjarwalla arrived in Nigeria in February following claims that the moneychanger was manipulating the country's fiat currency , the Nigerian naira. Arjarwalla was arrested along with another Binance executive after a meeting with the Nigerian government.
The investigation is being led by the county's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which has sharply criticized the exchange and its two directors, finding five charges bordering on money laundering . However, Anjarwalla reportedly escaped from custody on March 22 and was able to board a flight from Nigeria's capital, Abuja.
Anjarwalla reportedly flew out of Abuja on a Middle Eastern airline. However, it is not clear how he managed to board the international flight, as his British passport, with which he entered Nigeria, remains in the possession of Nigerian authorities.
According to an immigration official, Director Binance fled Nigeria on a Kenyan passport, and authorities are now trying to determine how Anjarwalla obtained the passport, as he had no other travel documents in custody.
While Arjarwalla is out of the country, Binance's other director, Tigran Gambaryan, has pleaded not guilty to the charges , and his wife and others have called for his release after several weeks in custody. Gambaryan's wife has filed a petition to bring him back to the United States, which at the time of publication had 3,373 signatures. Gambaryan's case, however, was postponed until April 19 .
On March 5, Binance announced that it intends to cease all naira transactions , effectively withdrawing from the market. Binance also mentioned that in late February peer-to-peer platform Binance delisted all naira trading pairs .
On February 27, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria argued that cryptocurrency exchanges in Nigeria are suspected of handling illegal transactions , also pointing to "suspicious flows" of funds on Binance.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
