The Binance executive has been detained in Nigeria since February.

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan was denied bail by a Nigerian judge, a family spokesperson said Friday.

Gambaryan, the crypto exchange’s head of financial crime compliance, has been detained in Nigeria since February. He has been in the notorious Kuje prison alongside the likes of terrorist group Boko Haram since fellow Binance employee Nadeem Anjarwalla escaped custody in March.

Alongside Binance, Gambaryan was charged with tax evasion and money laundering, though the tax charges were later dropped.

The court deferred making a decision on bail in September. Gambaryan’s attorneys filed a new bail application, citing his deteriorating medical condition. One lawyer, Mark Mordi, told the court last month that the executive has needed surgery since July 18 and requires urgent assistance that cannot currently be provided in prison, Bloomberg reported.

During his time in prison Gambaryan has developed malaria, pneumonia and tonsillitis and suffers from complications tied to a herniated disc in his back, which left him in need of a wheelchair – though in a video from his last court appearance, Gambaryan did not have a wheelchair, and instead had to struggle on a single crutch.

“It is completely unjust to deny someone in Tigran’s condition the opportunity to seek appropriate medical help and I just pray that when he is finally released that the damage he is suffering is not permanent,” Tigran’s wife Yuki Gamabryan said. “I am exhausted and deeply disappointed, but I will continue fighting for my husband’s rightful freedom.”

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Nadeem Anjarwalla, who escaped Nigerian custody in March, could be extradited back to the country within the week, one local media outlet reported citing government sources.

Nadeem Anjarwalla, an executive at crypto exchange Binance who recently escaped Nigerian custody, has been located in Kenya and faces extradition, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Nigerian authorities have found Anjarwalla in Kenya and are working with Kenyan authorities to bring the executive back to the country, Nigeria’s Daily Post reported last week, citing government sources. Nigerian newspaper The Punch reported on Monday, citing unnamed government sources, that Anjarwalla could be returned to Nigeria within the week via the international criminal police organization (INTERPOL).

CoinDesk has reached out to INTERPOL, Kenya’s foreign ministry and Nigeria’s police force for comment.

Anjarwalla was detained alongside another Binance executive, Tigran Gambaryan, in February, as Nigerian authorities accused the crypto exchange of manipulating the local exchange rate, tax evasion and money laundering.

Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan dual national, reportedly fled the country in March using a concealed Kenyan passport. Gambaryan, still in Nigeria, pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges during an April court appearance.

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Tigran Gambaryan was remanded pending trial, reports say.

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan, who was detained by Nigerian authorities in February alongside a colleague, pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges at a high court on Monday, local outlets reported.

Gambaryan was remanded until trial, according to reports, while bail can be requested until April 18.

The head of Binance’s financial crime compliance was detained in the country along with another executive at the company, Nadeem Anjarwalla, back in February amid accusations by Nigeria’s government that Binance had helped process illegal funds worth billions of dollars and that it had manipulated the exchange rate for the Nigerian naira.

In March, Anjarwalla escaped custody and, since then, the two executives have filed suit against the Nigerian government accusing it of violating human rights.

Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has accused Binance, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla of tax evasion, while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused the same parties of laundering money.

Despite Binance’s statement last week urging Gambaryan should not be held responsible for the company because he doesn’t have any desicion-making power, a Nigerian judge allowed the suit to continue, reports said.

Justice Emeka Nwite reportedly argued that Gambaryan and Anjarwalla had in the past engaged with officials in the country regarding the crypto exchange’s operations, and therefore could pass as representatives of the firm.

Gambaryan reportedly pleaded not guilty to five counts including one alleging that he, Anjarwalla and Binance used the crypto exchange to “unlawfully negotiate foreign exchange rates in Nigeria and you thereby committed an offense contrary to and punishable under section 29(1) (C) of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring And Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.”

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A Gibraltar court has ordered Binance, Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Kraken to freeze wallets or identify owners linked to the collapsed crypto trader.

A Gibraltar court has ordered several crypto exchanges to cooperate with the liquidators of crypto trader Globix, who are seeking to track $43 million that went astray, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Kraken have been ordered to identify the owners of suspect wallets, and Binance to freeze transfers, said the report, which cited the April 13 court order and talks with a person familiar with the search.

Gibraltar has sought to become a crypto hub, housing spot trading services for the Huobi exchange and ZUBR, a subsidiary of collapsed crypto exchange FTX.

The crypto trader stopped receiving investments in June amid crypto market turmoil, and filed for liquidation last month. Damian Carerras, its owner and director, who is from Gibraltar, told the FT the company it had tried to recover funds, but had been the victim of cyber crime and theft.

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Ethereum implemented the Shanghai upgrade early Thursday, opening withdrawals of more than 18 million ETH staked in the blockchain since late 2020.

Binance announced Thursday that users who staked ether (ETH) through the exchange will be able to redeem coins with their BETH holdings on a 1:1 basis starting from April 19, 08:00 coordinated universal time (UTC).

The announcement came hours after Ethereum implemented the highly-anticipated Shapella hard fork, also known as Shanghai upgrade, opening withdrawals of more than 18 million ETH staked in the blockchain since late 2020.

Binance said that user requests for withdrawals, once submitted, cannot be canceled and the process may be slow initially, requiring 15 days to several weeks for completion. Users will receive redeemed ether in their spot wallets and pending BETH tokens locked in pending ETH withdrawal requests won’t be eligible for staking rewards. BETH is a wrapped token issued by Binance which is 1:1 pegged to ETH on the Ethereum blockchain.

“The expected distribution date of redeemed ETH will be shown before users confirm their withdrawal requests. Users can refer to the most updated ETH distribution date at Staking History,” Binance said in an official announcement.

The exchange added that there would be a daily redemption quote for each user, considering the processing limitations on the Ethereum network and it is subject to change.

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Some Binance employees and volunteers shared tips on forging bank documents, falsifying addresses or hiding the country of origin to secure a Binance debit card, CNBC reported, citing Binance-controlled Chinese-language chatrooms, whose messages it translated.

Some Binance employees and trained “volunteers” are helping users in China and other countries evade Binance’s Know Your Customer (KYC) controls, CNBC reported Wednesday, citing Chinese-language messages from a Binance-controlled Discord server and Telegram group.

The message group participants, called “Angels,” share techniques such as forging bank documents, falsifying addresses and hiding the country of origin to allow users to bypass controls and obtain a Binance debit card, according to the report.

China banned crypto exchanges in 2017, and cryptocurrencies altogether in 2021.

A Binance spokesperson told CNBC that “Binance employees are explicitly forbidden from suggesting or supporting users in circumventing their local laws and regulatory policies, and would be immediately dismissed or audited if found to have violated those policies.”

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Some users on Reddit reported bitcoin transfers to Coinbase from Binance were being blocked due to potential sanctions concerns.

A technical issue on Coinbase’s side led to certain transfers of bitcoin from Binance being blocked.

Users on Reddit and Twitter were reporting late Tuesday that attempts to transfer bitcoin from Binance to Coinbase were being met with an Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice that said their transfer was being blocked because it was coming from an “OFAC sanctioned address.”

A spokesperson for Coinbase acknowledged that this was a technical issue, which impacted fewer than 100 people, and has been fixed. Coinbase sent affected users an email saying the deposit will be credited to their account shortly.

OFAC maintains a lengthy list of crypto wallets and protocols that have been classified as “specifically designated nationals” and sanctioned, meaning that U.S.-based entities are not allowed to interact with them.

Conceivably, a data entry error could have caused this problem.
In August 2022, the crypto mixer Tornado Cash was added to the sanction list. Tornado Cash has been repeatedly used to try and obscure the destinations of hacked crypto, including by North Korea.

Coinbase is currently backing a lawsuit to try and compel the U.S. Treasury to reverse its decision on Tornado Cash.

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 A bipartisan grouping of three Senators has pressed the crypto exchange on allegations it sought to limit compliance.

A bipartisan grouping of three US Senators has written to Binance asking for details on its money laundering controls, accusing the crypto exchange of being a “hotbed of illegal financial activity,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Mar. 1 letter to Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the group requested details of the company’s balance sheets, internal procedures and any communications about alleged efforts by Zhao to limit compliance.

The letter, from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) and Roger Marshall (R-Ks) said that Binance and related entities “have purposefully evaded regulators, moved assets to criminals and sanctions evaders and hidden basic financial information from its customers and the public,” WSJ reported.

The exchange is reportedly bracing itself for significant fines for past conduct.

A Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk that it “always” responds to queries from jurisdictions in which it operates, but suggested accusations in the letter were false.

“A lot of misinformation has been spread about our company and we look forward to correcting the record,” the spokesperson said, adding that Binance.com, the corporate entity, does not operate in or have customers in the U.S.

However, the company conducts its U.S. related business through its subsidiary Binance.US.

In response to the Senators, the company “will provide information to help them better understand why we remain the most trusted platform with users across the globe,” the spokesperson added.

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Binance and the Drug Enforcement Agency disrupted a pipeline that moved cash generated from selling narcotics in Michigan to Mexico via stablecoins.

Federal officials seized nearly $1.8 million in cryptocurrencies from six Binance accounts tied to drug traffickers.

A U.S. Court in Eastern Michigan granted a civil forfeiture request for approximately $1.8 million in today’s value of cryptocurrencies that were seized in May 2022 as part of an operation to disrupt a cash pipeline that funneled the proceeds of narcotics sales to Mexico via stablecoins.

Court filings and source familiar with the matter say that the cash couriers would deposit money generated from drug trafficking, use Binance to purchase USDT as well as bitcoin (BTC), and then send the crypto to a designated address controlled by a criminal organization in Mexico.

Six Binance accounts were named in the criminal complaint.

A source that works with law enforcement on these matters said that the relationship between Binance and the DEA is “pretty tight.” DEA officials and Binance staff regularly meet to share intelligence, which is used to calibrate Binance’s anti-money laundering policies and assist DEA operations, the individual said.

This is part of a continued effort by Mexican cartels to use Binance as a conduit for money laundering.

Per earlier reports, Mexican gangs have been using Binance since early 2020. In 2021, a Mexican national named Carlos Fong Echavarria pled guilty to charges of drug trafficking and laundering around $4.7 million in crypto.

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The acquisition sees Binance re-enter South Korea’s market, having closed its affiliate there in December 2020 due to low usage.

Binance has acquired a majority stake in South Korean crypto exchange GOPAX, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.

The acquisition sees the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume re-enter South Korea’s market, having closed its affiliate there in December 2020 due to low usage. Terms for the deal were not disclosed.

Binance’s investment in GOPAX came via the Industry Recovery Initiative, which Binance leads and committed $1 billion to in November, in response to the fallout from the collapse of FTX.

GOPAX’s parent firm Streami Inc, in which CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) became the second largest shareholder in 2021, is one of the largest creditors of bankrupt crypto lender Genesis, which is also a DCG subsidiary.

Following Genesis’ suspension of withdrawals in November, GOPAX did the same with its yield product GoFi.

The Binance capital injected into the firm will allow withdrawals and interest payments to recommence, according to the Bloomberg report.

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