A Federal High Court in Abuja has refused to grant bail to Tigran Gambaryan, an executive of Binance Holdings Limited, a cryptocurrency firm.
The judge, Emeka Nwite, held that the reason for declining to grant Gambaryan bail is because he is likely to “jump bail” if granted.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Gambaryan alongside Binance Holdings Ltd and Nadeem Anjarwalla, (currently at large) on five-count charge bordering on alleged tax evasion, currency speculation and money laundering to tune of $34,400,000 (Thirty-Four Million, Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars). The defendants deny any wrongdoing.
In his ruling, the judge said several factors including the nature of offence and its severity must be considered when trying to decide whether or not bail should be granted to the defendant.
After the ruling, the EFCC called its first witness, a staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission who said the operations of Binance in Nigeria is unlawful because it is unregistered and unregulated. The witness further said the activities of Binance in Nigeria negatively affected the value of the Naira in the foreign exchange market.
