Binance is “working as collaboratively as we can” with the Nigerian government to secure the release of its jailed financial crimes investigations chief, Tigran Gambaryan, the exchange’s chief compliance officer Noah Perlman said Wednesday.

Gambaryan, a former IRS special agent who pivoted to Binance in 2021, pleaded not guilty this week to committing money laundering, tax evasion and manipulating the price of Nigeria’s currency. He was in the country at the Nigerian government’s invitation, Perlman said.

Speaking at a cybersecurity conference held by Chainalysis, Perlman said he was “optimistic” Binance could reach a resolution with the Nigerian government that would free Gambrayan, but declined to talk specifics.

"Obviously the whole situation is just tragic," he said.

Gambaryan was detained in February, after visiting the country with fellow executive Nadeem Anjarwalla to discuss the Nigerian government's concerns with country officials. However, they were detained without charge and placed under house arrest.

Anjarwalla managed to escape, and the government filed charges against both executives as representatives of the exchange and Binance itself last month.

Binance previously said in a statement that Gambaryan did not have any decision-making authority with the exchange.

Regulations Binance Nigeria Tigran Gambaryan Noah-Perlman

Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk's managing editor for Data & Tokens. He formerly ran investigations for the Tufts Daily. At CoinDesk, his beats include (but are not limited to): federal policy, regulation, securities law, exchanges, the Solana ecosystem, smart money doing dumb things, dumb money doing smart things and tungsten cubes. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL tokens, as well as the LinksDAO NFT.