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Africa Live: Cryptocurrency boss escapes Nigerian custody - reports - BBC News Africa Live: Cryptocurrency boss escapes Nigerian custody - reports - BBC News
(about 1 hour later)
Anne Soy & Nkechi Ogbonna Mansur Abubakar
BBC News, Nairobi & Lagos BBC News
Cryptocurrency platform Binance has confirmed to the BBC that one of its executives who had been arrested by
the authorities in Nigeria is no longer in custody, amid reports he escaped from the country. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has called on family, friends and associates to celebrate him in a different way as he turns 72 on Friday.
Nadeem In a statement released by his aide Bayo Onanuga, Mr Tinubu said Nigeria is going through challenging times and he does not want people organising celebratory events in his name.
Anjarwalla, who holds both British and Kenyan passports, was arrested last “Because of the present mood of the nation there should be no form of birthday event and placing of birthday goodwill advertorial messages in newspapers.
month together with a colleague, Tigran "Goodwill messages should not be placed on radio and television stations too," the statement said.
Gambaryan, as part of a tax evasion probe against Binance. The president asked friends and associates who wish to pay for goodwill advertorials to instead donate the money to charities.
A Binance
spokesperson said on Monday: "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."
Earlier, we reported that the authorities have now formally filed tax evasion charges against the firm and named Mr Anjarwalla among the defendants.
Nigeria's authorities have been clamping down on
cryptocurrency platforms over allegations they are being used for money laundering and
financing terrorism.
Mr Anjarwalla, who is Binance’s Africa Regional Manager, and Mr Gambaryan, a US citizen in charge of financial crime compliance at the firm,
were arrested shortly after their arrival in Nigeria on 26 February.
A court
granted the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) request to detain the two executives
for 14 days, before extending the duration by another fortnight.
Mr Anjarwalla and Mr Gambaryan were due to appear again
in court on 4 April. However, in the last 24 hours, reports of Mr Anjarwalla's apparent escape began to emerge.
Local media in
Nigeria have reported that he asked the guards at a guest house he was being
held in to allow him to attend a mosque last Friday, but he never returned.
It was reported that Nigerian authorities had confiscated
his British passport but the whereabouts of his Kenyan passport was unknown.
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