Yuki, wife of the detained Binance Holdings Limited executive, Tigran Gambaryan, has described the 65 days her husband has spent in custody as the longest in their lives.
Gambaryan and another Executive of the company, Nadeem Anjarwalla, were detained on February 26 following an investigation into Binance’s activities in Nigeria.
Yuki, represented by her congressman, Rich McCormick, spoke at the House Foreign Affairs Committee roundtable on Americans detained abroad on Tuesday.
Yuki accused the Nigerian government of luring her husband to the country and detaining Gambaryan without initially charging him with any crime.
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 world of finance, crime, and compliance.
“He spends his days investigating and pursuing criminal activity on the cryptocurrency platform of Binance, his employer. However, 24 hours after his arrival, he was arrested and detained without charge or explanation.
“It took over two weeks for the Nigerian government to fabricate tax-related charges against Tigran and finance. I cannot speak for his employer, but the charges against Tigran are utterly baseless.
“He was lured into the country under false pretences, only to be arrested due to some allegations against his employer.”
Yuki also lamented that her husband was being kept at the Kuje correctional centre where terrorists were being held.
“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.
“To see my husband, who is by nature a person of goodwill and strong moral character, be used as a bargaining chip by the Nigerian government is devastating.”
She therefore called on the United States of America government to stop being passive in the matter involving its citizens.
Yuki said, “The United States cannot afford to remain passive while its citizens suffer tremendously in the name of geopolitical gamesmanship.”
Anjarwalla on March 23 escaped from safe custody and fled the country.
Gambaryan alongside Binance were subsequently arraigned by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on tax evasion and money laundering charges respectively.