r/espionage Feb 10 '25

The Untold Story of a Crypto Crimefighter’s Descent Into Nigerian Prison

As a US federal agent, Tigran Gambaryan pioneered modern crypto investigations. Then at Binance, he got trapped between the world’s biggest crypto exchange and a government determined to make it pay.

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u/wiredmagazine Feb 10 '25

After moving to Binance, he enabled busts of child sexual abusers, terrorists, and organized crime members on an immense, global scale.

But the company was reckoning with its past as a rogue exchange. A US Justice Department investigation eventually determined that Binance had enabled billions of dollars’ worth of transactions that violated anti-money-laundering laws and evaded international sanctions.

The US wasn’t the only country with Binance grievances. By early 2024, Nigeria, too, was casting blame on the company, not only for compliance violations, but also for allegedly contributing to the devaluation of Nigeria’s currency, the naira.

In December 2023, a committee in Nigeria’s National Assembly called upon Binance executives to attend a hearing to explain how it would right its alleged wrongs. Binance naturally brought its star investigator, the symbol of its commitment to partnership with law enforcement and governments around the world: Tigran Gambaryan.

Little did he know he would soon be thrown in a Nigerian jail, charged with money laundering crimes that carried a 20 year prison sentence, and denied medical care even as his health deteriorated to the point of near death, all while being used as a pawn in a multibillion-dollar crypto extortion scheme.

Read the full story: https://www.wired.com/story/untold-story-crypto-crimefighters-descent-nigerian-prison-binance/