Pending the adjudication of his bail request, Tigran Gambaryan, an executive at Binance, has been placed in custody within the walls of the Kuje correctional facility by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The order was handed down by Justice Emeka Nwite after the defendant, refuting the money laundering allegations presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), entered his plea on Monday.
Allegations from the EFCC have targeted Binance, Gambaryan, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, who is currently at large, asserting that they deliberately obscured the origins of $35,400,000 in revenue generated by Binance in Nigeria, recognizing that these funds were derived from illegal endeavors.
The scheduled arraignment of Binance Holdings Limited and Tigran Gambaryan encountered a delay on April 4th due to an objection raised by Gambaryan’s legal representative, Mark Mordi, (SAN).
Mordi maintained that his client’s arraignment could not proceed due to the EFCC’s failure to properly serve Binance Holdings Limited with the necessary documents.
However, E.E. Iheanacho, representing the EFCC, acknowledged that the second defendant functioned as Binance’s local agent, clarifying that the charges were delivered to him on the company’s behalf, albeit met with refusal.
In his verdict, Justice Nwite concluded that the service of papers to Gambaryan, representing the company, was deemed valid.
He pointed out that Section 478 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act states that service must be accomplished on a principal representative of a company within the jurisdiction.
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Justice Nwite added that all the prosecution needed was to establish that the person being served was an agent of Binance.
The judge held, “Does the second defendant qualify as an agent of Binance?
“From the above statement, the second defendant is the duly appointed representative of Binance. The second defendant is bound to receive a summons on behalf of Binance.
“The service of the second defendant on behalf of the first defendant is proper. The court should proceed with the arraignment of the defendants.”
Moreover, he noted that in an affidavit deposed to by Gambaryan’s lawyer, he claimed his client and Anjarwalla travelled to Nigeria to attend a meeting with Nigerian government officials on behalf of Binance.
The charges were then read to Gambaryan, but he pleaded not guilty for himself and Binance.
The prosecution counsel requested a date for the commencement of the trial.
But Gambaryan’s lawyer, Mordi pleaded with the court to grant his client’s bail application.
Mordi said, “I am happy to go to trial. But there is a question of the second defendant’s custody. He has been in custody for 40 days. This is a foreign national. There’s nothing more significant than where he is going after here. We are created by God and the greatest thing anyone can have is freedom.”
However, Iheanacho stated, “The proper place to be post-arrangement is a correctional centre. We have Nigerians convicted in the US. His detention was proper. They raised a Preliminary Objection which the magistrate court dismissed.”
However, Mordi appealed to the court as an alternative solution to have his client detained in the EFCC’s custody. Following this, the judge postponed the proceedings to April 18th to address Gambaryan’s bail application and set May 2nd as the date for the trial to begin.