Capital Economy, Business and Finance
Spare a thought for Tigran Gambaryan. He’s a 40 year-old compliance officer for Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange by volume, and he’s been in jail in Nigeria since February on charges of tax evasion and money laundering. Last Friday he was denied bail. Two things may be going on here; possibly both at the same time. One is a $150 million shakedown – for that is the sum Gambaryan and a colleague said was demanded of them as the price of making fraud charges go away on a visit to Abuja in January. The other is a warning from the Nigerian government that it’s troubled by Binance’s impact on the volatility of the Naira, which halved in value relative to the dollar last summer and collapsed to near zero in January. Nigeria boasts the world's second-highest grassroots crypto adoption rate after India.
This article was amended on 21 May to correct the date that Lord David Owen was health secretary.