Yuki Gambaryan, the wife of the detained Binance Holdings Limited executive, Tigran Gambaryan, hass told the US Parliament that the Nigerian Government kept his husband, Tigran Gambaryan, in Kuje prison together with Boko Haram terrorists and bandits.
Yuki, represented by her congressman, Rich McCormick, spoke at Tuesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee roundtable on Americans detained abroad.
According to her, the husband has spent 65 days in custody.
Gambaryan and another company executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, were detained on February 26 following an investigation into Binance’s activities in Nigeria.
Gambaryan’s wife stated that although she couldn’t speak on behalf of the company, she stressed that the charges against her husband were completely unfounded.
She said,” My husband and the father of our two young children, Tigrin, has been in Nigerian custody for 65 days, the longest two months of our lives. On February 25, he landed in Abuja at the Nigerian Government’s request for a financial compliance policy. This is what Tigran does. He helps countries navigate the notoriously prickly finance, crime, and compliance world.
“He spends his days investigating and pursuing criminal activity on Binance, his employer’s cryptocurrency platform. However, 24 hours after his arrival, he was arrested and detained without charge or explanation.
“Today, my husband sits in the notorious Kuje prison, a place that has held Militants from Islamic State and Boko Haram,” she said.
Gambaryan’s wife accused the Nigerian Government of using her husband as a bargaining chip, a situation she described as devastating.
She said, “Ironically, Tigran spent more than a decade as a special agent for the United States General Revolution Revenue Service, investigating issues of national security, terrorist financing, identity theft, distribution of tile pornography, tax evasion and more”.
It would be recalled that on April 8, the Nigerian Government arraigned Binance and Gambaryan on five count charges bordering on money laundering.
