Tigran Gambaryan, a compliance officer for Binance, had been held on money laundering charges as part of a sweeping Nigerian government case against the company.
On Thursday, a plane equipped with medical equipment departed Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, to bring him back to the United States. During his detention, Gambaryan had contracted malaria and double pneumonia, and he has a herniated disk.
His release came after months of diplomatic pressure by the United States and in return for American promises of an improved partnership with Nigeria, including on cybercrime investigations.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, called Gambaryan’s wife, Yuki Gambaryan, on Thursday morning to let her know that Nigeria had released her husband. Sullivan said Tigran Gambaryan was being flown back to the United States for “needed medical attention.”
The detention of the American came as Nigerian frustration over Binance and other companies was rising, and as officials there sought more help in cracking down on cryptocurrencies for their country’s economic crisis.
Discover the stories of your interest
Gambaryan had arrived in Nigeria just days before he was arrested in February. He was initially held in a government-owned guesthouse but was transferred to the notorious Kuje prison in April. Tax evasion charges were later dropped. But prosecutors argued that Gambaryan was responsible for Binance’s alleged money laundering activities in the country, which they said had contributed to the economic crisis. Binance has denied the claims and said that Gambaryan was a midlevel employee who should not be held responsible for the company’s actions.
“We are deeply relieved and grateful that Tigran Gambaryan has finally been released,” Binance CEO Richard Teng said in a social media post Thursday. “We are eager to put this episode behind us.”
When asked whether Binance had paid Nigeria to free Gambaryan, Deborah Curtis, a lawyer for Binance, said: “This was a totally humanitarian release.”
U.S. officials initially seemed divided over his detention. The State Department never officially designated him as wrongfully detained, and some officials insisted throughout his detention that there was not enough evidence to suggest that he was being improperly held. Some officials were also skeptical of Binance’s activities in Nigeria.
But others were convinced that Nigeria was using him as a pawn to pressure Binance. As part of a crackdown on illicit finance, Nigeria wanted the company to share more information about its customers’ identities than employees believed they could provide. But Binance insisted it had shared the concerns about illicit finance, one of the reasons it hired Gambaryan in the first place.
As Gambaryan’s health deteriorated, former colleagues from when he worked as an agent for the IRS pressed his case, as did several members of Congress.
Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., who had visited Gambaryan in prison in June, said Thursday that he celebrated Gambaryan’s release but was still aghast at how the Nigerian government had behaved.
“I remain deeply disappointed that an American business executive can essentially be held under horrible conditions on unfounded charges with an important international partner to the United States,” he said.
U.S. officials had been quietly asking for Gambaryan’s release since at least June. In a visit to Nigeria on June 14, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, raised the issue with the country’s national security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Richard M. Mills Jr., the newly appointed ambassador to Nigeria, told officials the following month of how much of an irritant the case had become to Washington, according to U.S. officials.
As Gambaryan’s health worsened, the negotiations over his release intensified. Sullivan called Ribadu on Sept. 11 and Sept. 30. In the first call, Sullivan said there were compelling reasons to free Gambaryan on humanitarian grounds.
The conversations with Nigeria were far less confrontational than recent U.S. negotiations with Russia over Americans wrongly imprisoned there. Russia tried to secure the release of people held in Western prisons in high-profile prisoner exchanges. But the United States and Nigeria are partners, and U.S. officials told their counterparts that they shared some of their concerns.
Senior U.S. officials said they made plain that Gambaryan’s detention was hurting their countries’ relationship. But they also told the Nigerians that they had a right to investigate cryptocurrency companies, including Binance, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
The Americans told the Nigerians that the United States could give them more help with investigations of cryptocurrency companies, but only when Gambaryan was free, the officials said.
Nigeria, like many other countries, is interested in partnering with the United States on artificial intelligence. Many countries believe that U.S. companies have the best AI models and that the U.S.-led system is likely to dominate the world market. But through export controls and other regulations, the U.S. government has a large say on what countries can access its cutting-edge technology.
Officials at a joint U.S.-Nigerian meeting in Washington announced in May that the United States would fund an AI conference in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, this year. The officials also discussed how to expand cooperation on AI under a Biden initiative intended to expand digital access across Africa.
Throughout the Biden administration, Sullivan has engaged in a kind of tech diplomacy, promising cooperation with U.S. firms to dissuade countries from working with Chinese companies.
While U.S. officials did not explicitly withdraw the promises made in May, they had warned that as long as Gambaryan was detained, cooperation between the two countries would never reach its “full heights,” according to an official.
While there have been no specific AI announcements beyond the initiative announced in May, the United States did make a more explicit promise. The State Department announced Wednesday the creation of a bilateral group that would help Nigeria improve its ability to conduct “cybercrime investigations and prosecutions.”
In a statement Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the release of Gambaryan and the positive outcome to the diplomacy showed the “shared commitment” of the United States and Nigeria to work together. “Our close law enforcement cooperation remains a cornerstone of our bilateral relationship,” he said.
