US Lawmakers Accuse Nigeria of Taking Binance Executive Hostage (bloomberg.com) 44
US lawmakers accused Nigeria of taking a Binance executive "hostage" and urged President Joe Biden to help secure his release. From a report: Sixteen Republican congressman including Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul wrote to Biden to have the case of Tigran Gambaryan referred to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. A US citizen, Gambaryan is head of financial crime compliance at Binance and has been held at a prison in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, since April.
"The charges against Mr. Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance," the lawmakers wrote in the June 4 letter, a copy of which has been seen by Bloomberg. "Following these charges, Mr. Gambaryan qualifies as a 'U.S. Citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government,'" they said. The faceoff between Africa's most-populous nation and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange burst into view in February, when Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague -- who subsequently escaped -- during a visit to discuss the company's compliance issues with the country.
"The charges against Mr. Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance," the lawmakers wrote in the June 4 letter, a copy of which has been seen by Bloomberg. "Following these charges, Mr. Gambaryan qualifies as a 'U.S. Citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government,'" they said. The faceoff between Africa's most-populous nation and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange burst into view in February, when Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague -- who subsequently escaped -- during a visit to discuss the company's compliance issues with the country.
Crypto exec taken hostage! (Score:2)
One down, far too many to go.
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Yeah I was trying to figure out the preceding steps of why this guy was in Nigeria in the first place, there was a NYT article earlier in may that goes over the story here
https://archive.is/GTRjo [archive.is]
Learned that Nigeria is Binances second largest crypto country so it seems like it played out like this:
Company builds up userbase of a product used for a lot of crimes.
Nigeria is a country already known for a lot of financial crimes/
Nigeria uses product marketed heavily to them that is very obviously used for finan
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Most of the time, on the email, the Nigerian prince will get some money from you, to pay legal fees to get more money unlocked and you will be repaid many times over....
I'm guessing the hostage guy just misunderstood the deal and caused a ruckus over there....?
Urgent Assistance Required for Unclaimed Cryptocur (Score:1)
**Subject: Urgent Assistance Required for Unclaimed Cryptocurrency Funds and Hostage Situation**
Dear Esteemed Binance Team,
Greetings to you. I am Dr. Adewale Obasanjo, the Chief Financial Officer of the Central Bank of Nigeria. I am writing to seek your urgent and confidential assistance in a matter of utmost importance.
Recently, a client of our bank, Mr. John Richard, who held a substantial amount of cryptocurrency assets with your esteemed platform, tragically passed away without any known heirs. The tota
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Are we sure it's not George Agdgdgwngo [youtube.com]
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Thanks for the link! That was quite entertaining.
Compliance (Score:2)
If he's in charge of complying with financial crimes, doesn't he belong in prison? Isn't that what most cryptocurrency is used for?
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Is there a neutral non-paywalled news source for this?
16 members of the GOP calling on a crypto bro to be freed from jail during an election year and it's all Biden's fault?
Lesson learned; one shouldn't FAFO with Nigeria.
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The irony of Nigeria accusing an American company of financial crimes.
Actually, it's the users that commit crime. He might be responsible for trying to stop it, but it's not like he has any ability to do anything other than look at data.
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Perhaps in this case. I didn't check the story. But there have certainly been a very large number of managers of crypto-currencies that have definitely committed financial crimes.
But, yeah, in this case perhaps he's just a "co-conspirator". (And perhaps that's what they've charged him with. I'm not sure what "compliance" means in this context.)
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Previous career exposing laundering schemes.
https://www.binance.com/en/blo... [binance.com]
The "company's compliance issues with the country" was the reason for his visit. Whom he might have embarrassed to land in him jail, well...
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If the company is knowingly allowing itself to be used by individuals to commit crimes, then they are a party to those crime. It's the logic that US banks use when dealing with marijuana growers. They don't want to get dragged into their mess if the grower gets busted, so they refuse to deal with them.
In this scenario, Binance knows exactly what it's doing and this exec pretty much deserves his fate.
Is this a test? (Score:2)
The link in TFS resolves to "https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/06/05/1543250/url". So here we have a Slashdot summary whose story link is the self-same Slashdot summary.
I've heard of circular reasoning, but circular news reporting is a new one to me.
"Tough on crime" party? (Score:1, Flamebait)
The anti-law party. Treasonous insurrectionists of 6 Jan are "hostages", TFG is a "hostage", and now this.
Why doesn't the GOP come out and admit they're the Trump Crime Family, with worldwide operations?
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I thought it was the "mostly peaceful protesters"....?
Ugh...I keep getting confused that couple years with all the riots that got out of control....which ones are sanctioned by many of those in the media/govt and which are not...
Re: "Tough on crime" party? (Score:1)
You mean the riots which were started by cops? Or are you talking about the more recent pro-Palestine protests where riots were started by Zionist Jews leading chants of "death to Israel" so the cops would have an excuse to move in?
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Now I know you're being paid by someone to spread bullshit online.
No one with working eyes and ears will believe .
Holy shit. Wow. You're.. different, for sure. And not in a good way.
Tell me, which of the hundreds of nearly identical green and white tents you're in? And are you at Hah-vahd, Columbia, Yale, Berkeley or which one?
Maybe i'll take a collection, hire Evergreen's 747 tanker, fill it with molten pig fat, and fly it over your encampment.
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You mean the riots which were started by cops? Or are you talking about the more recent pro-Palestine protests where riots were started by Zionist Jews leading chants of "death to Israel" so the cops would have an excuse to move in?
Stop huffing that gas Willy! Biff will lose all respect for you eventually!!
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You mean the riots which were started by cops? Or are you talking about the more recent pro-Palestine protests where riots were started by Zionist Jews leading chants of "death to Israel" so the cops would have an excuse to move in?
Can you lead us in a chorus off "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" and give us one of those "Roman" salutes?
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Nice troll!
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Nah, he believes what he's saying.
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They made this video for you.
https://youtu.be/rbfccVBo9tE [youtu.be]
Binance settleed with US goernment for crim $4.3B (Score:5, Informative)
May I remind everybody :
.
Whether the Nigerian government has enough evidence is a matter of the court there , but they accuse binance of similar crimes.
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they were arrested because they did not pay a bribe.
I wonder how much the escape cost.
Duty of disclosure (Score:2)
A bill requiring banks and other financial institutions to release to the US government data about the members of such a foreign government would have interesting consequences. The US could then start releasing embarrassing details about the finances. Or just use the threat to get their victims released...
Hmmmm who should we trust? (Score:4)
Can anyone think of a good reason why a "US Lawmaker" would advocate on behalf of a member of criminal organization?
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Hmmmm who should we trust? US Lawmakers or US Law Enforcement? Because according to the DOJ, Binance is a criminal organization guilty of supporting terrorists and transnational criminal organizations: Hmmmm who should we trust? Can anyone think of a good reason why a "US Lawmaker" would advocate on behalf of a member of criminal organization?
I can give you several reasons.
1. Trump somehow got wind of the guy and is demanding his release just to stick it to the current administration. I haven't heard of this actually. being the case, but it would be a reason if it did happen.
2. Dumbass Congresscritter got some money from somebody and in return they have to advocate for this.
3. Dumbass Congresscritter got a one sided story on this being an attack on an "American citizen" and is stirring the pot to look busy back home. Members of Congr
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Whoever told him to take this position has to have some kind of monetized interests in Binance. It doesn't really make much of a difference whether that interest is a form of lobbying vs a form of contribution. Someone paying a staffer to convince him and someone paying him to do is basically the exact same problem: this posi
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Hmmmm who should we trust? US Lawmakers or US Law Enforcement? Because according to the DOJ, Binance is a criminal organization guilty of supporting terrorists and transnational criminal organizations: Hmmmm who should we trust?
Can anyone think of a good reason why a "US Lawmaker" would advocate on behalf of a member of criminal organization?
Erm, just because someone is a law breaker does not automatically deny them the protection of the law.
Fun fact: "outlaw" expressly means a person who is denied the protection of the law, "outside of the law", so you could rob or kill them without penalty. If someone was wanted (dead or alive) by the law they weren't outlaws (bounties could be placed on outlaws). We don't really declare people outlaws any more because, well, it was never a good idea and it didn't really fix anything.
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The politicians who signed this letter are the ones trying to circumvent due process. I'll say it again, there is no plausible reason, outside of monetized interests, to advocate for this guy. There is no reasonable moral or ethica
Not the first time (Score:3, Informative)
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I was thinking about the daughter of one of the leading lights of Huawei, here is how it resolved [bbc.com]. She was detained in Canada at the request of the DOJ, being held there (from December 2018 to September 2021) and she had to admit to some crap in order to get the charges dropped and return home.
The Russians do that kind of thing as well, Brittney Griner for one.
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Brittney Griner knowingly smuggled illegal drugs into Russia with full knowledge of their illegality. Just because she had gotten away with it before doesn't mean that she had to right to do it again. Plus she was stupid, she didn't even repackage the hash oil to remove the manufacturer's label showing the THC content, and I really don't have a lot of pity for stupid people.
Re: Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, the US wanted to steal the Arabelle turbines one way or another. And now that they pillaged the industrial secrets, they sold the company back...
That's how the US treats its oldest ally.
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details on this? like which CEO/ what year? something I can google or links?
best I can find is maybe 2014, but nothing about what you are suggesting (taking a CEO hostage)
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Found it
On April 13, 2013, Alstom senior executive Frédéric Pierucci was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He was accused of willful blindness of his company's suspected corruption and was imprisoned in a high security facility for 14 months and denied release on bail until the week of Alstom's acquisition by the US conglomerate General Electric.[54][55] In late 2014, Alstom was fined $772 million by the DOJ, and admitted guilt under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in relation to bribes paid to obtain contracts in various countries.
and more on his wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
My conclusion (Score:2)
If you trust the US government's determination that he's a criminal, you probably shouldn't be too surprised when another country reaches the same conclusions based on the same person engaging in the same practices.
At most, keep an eye on the case. Personally I wouldn't bother.
It's all to do with the value of the (Score:2)
Nigeria's currency has "been on a downward trend as of late" to say the least. The crypto guys were there saying things like "crypto doesn't have deflation/inflation" (paraphrasing) and convincing people to stop using the national currency and start trading crypto on the exchange Binance owns.
"Sixteen Republican congressman" - people who probably ALSO have a bunch of coin in Binance's exchange (Trump .. coins?)
If someone from Nigeria came here and upended the dollar, there'd be a whole lot of federal agents
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Parentheses make writing bad. See above. Nigeria sees the benefit in holding the Binance guy/guys hostage until they charge him/them with something similar to what the US did. They'll get a few billion and maybe deport these guys soon after. The Republicans are speaking up for Binance because their buddy got caught with his hands in the wrong pockets.
He may be a crook (Score:2)
but he's *our* crook.