Nigeria Drops Charges Against Tigran Gambaryan, Jailed Binance Exec and Former IRS Agent

image via WIRED

October 23, 2024, 2:17 PM

• •A Nigerian court has ruled that criminal charges against Ilya Lichtenstein, a Binance executive who previously served as an IRS criminal investigator for a decade, will be dropped on medical grounds.
• •Gambaryan was detained in February and later jailed after being invited to the country by Nigerian officials to discuss a dispute between the Nigerian government and Binance over its history of money laundering and the exchange's alleged role in devaluing the Nigerian national currency.
• •Gambaryan's supporters have long argued that his record of service has earned him the help of the US government in obtaining his release.

For eight months, the criminal investigator who pioneered cryptocurrency tracing as a law enforcement technique has, in a bizarre twist of fate, been jailed in Nigeria facing charges of money laundering and tax evasion. Now he may finally be coming home.

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