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

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

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.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (8).png

Research

Meta-aggregators like Titan and Kamino Swap improve price execution for users, making the Solana swapping landscape more competitive. Jupiter has incorporated meta-aggregation features into its latest routing engine to keep users on its front end (own the user, own the flow). At large, teams are treating swaps as a commoditized complement, offering incredibly cheap or free swaps to own the end-user and increase demand for high-margin product offerings (multi-product DeFi). On another note, the divergence in the concentration of aggregator volume between DEXs suggests increased specialization at the DEX layer by asset type.

article-image

Solana dropped nearly 10% amid mass crypto liquidations triggered by rising geopolitical strife

article-image

Investors moved to safe assets like the US dollar and gold, but bonds faltered

article-image

The Amex offers up to 4% bitcoin back, but the deal is a bit ironic considering crypto’s goals

article-image

Short answer: Subnets are now cheaper to bootstrap than a Celestia rollup

article-image

Few things are more cypherpunk than keeping keys in your brain wallet

article-image

Many community banks and credit unions feel like they missed the fintech craze — and they don’t want to miss stablecoins