Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has dismissed a bail application filed by Tigran Gambaryan, Binance executive and second defendant in an alleged tax evasion, currency speculation and money laundering case to the tune of $34,400,000 (Thirty-Four Million, Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).
Upon hearing Mark Mordi’s (SAN) bail application on April 8, 2024, the judge found that his defendant did not respect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As soon as he was arraigned on April 8, 2024, he hatched a plot to escape from lawful custody, just as his partner Nadeem Anjarwalla, who was the first defendant, did.
In addition, the judge noted that the first defendant, as well as some of his co-conspirators, had shared the same space in detention before the escape of the first defendant.
Accordingly, the judge denied the application.
In continuation of proceedings, prosecution counsel Ekele Iheanacho obtained permission for the First Prosecution Witness (PW1), Abdulqadir Abbas, the Director of Operations at the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to begin the main examination.
The witness, led in evidence by Iheanacho, testified that he had met the first defendant for the first time in the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).
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At a meeting convened by the National Security Adviser, we discussed the operations of the first defendant in Nigeria as they affect financial operations,” he recalls.
It was claimed that the first defendant was operating a platform that was not registered or regulated by the SEC, which he claimed violated the existing provisions of the Investment and Securities Act 2007. He also accused the first defendant of soliciting Nigerians without authorization by the SEC, which was also an infraction.
“The first defendant was in the meeting to discuss his operation and its impact on the Nigerian economy. It was clearly observed that the first defendant’s mode of operation is against the provision of SEC Act 2007. Apart from not being registered, and making public solicitation without authorization, the first defendant operates a net Naira Peer to Peer, P2P, transaction in exchange for crypto access”.
“The P2P could not be deployed on a normal trading route. This is because the CBN had banned banks from providing settlement platforms for crypto exchanges. As a result of the Naira P2P deployed by the first defendant and coupled with the large number of Nigerian users deliberately on that model, it adversely affected the official exchange rate. The Binance platform became the reference point for determining the exchange rate,” he said.
Responding to an enquiry of prosecution counsel on the relationship between the official exchange rate of the naira and the rate obtained on the Binance platform, the witness stated that “The rate reached a state where if one wants to exchange dollar, the Binance platform became the reference point. And that rate has no correlation or relationship with the official rate.”
The judge adjourned the matter till May 23, 2024, for cross-examination of the witness.
The EFCC is prosecuting the first and second defendants on a five-count charge, bordering on alleged tax evasion, currency speculation and money laundering to the tune of $34,400,000 (Thirty-Four Million, Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).
