Is Your Money Safe? The Truth About CBN's Alleged $26bn Move via Binance

Tigran Gambaryan, who is the Head of Financial Crime Compliance at Binance, has denied the assertions made by the Central Bank of Nigeria about an alleged $26 billion outflow from the country via the cryptocurrency exchange platform.

Gambaryan, detained in February 2024 on allegations of money laundering and tax evasion, spent eight months at the Kuje Correctional Center located in Abuja. In October 2024, the charges against him were dropped, and he left Nigeria due to concerns about his declining health and diplomatic considerations.

Gambaryan said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday that the $26 billion figure cited by the CBN was misleading, stressing that it represented a cumulative trade volume rather than actual funds exiting Nigeria.

“The $26bn figure they kept promoting publicly as some mysterious money escaping Nigeria is total “bullshit.” He stated, “This information was supplied in response to their request and consisted solely of cumulative trade data for Nigerians on the platform.”

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“This money remained within Nigeria—it was merely transactions of people buying and selling crypto. As an example, executing 100 trades of $100 each results in a trade volume of $10,000; however, you have only utilized $100 in total. Once more, this is simply another instance of them deceiving people to mask their “bullshit” investigation.

During a press briefing following the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting in February 2024, Olayemi Cardoso, the governor of CBN, asserted that Binance Nigeria was implicated in dubious financial flows totaling $26 billion from unknown sources.

„We are worried that some practices persist which suggest illegal flows, involving several of these entities and dubious flows. Cardoso stated, "Regarding Binance, $26 billion has flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from sources and users that we cannot properly identify."

The Binance executive also condemned the Nigerian authorities for attributing wider economic issues, such as the naira's devaluation, to Binance.

“Everyone was aware that the naira’s devaluation stemmed directly from Tinubu’s monetary policy, which removed the naira’s peg to the dollar. I’m not claiming this policy choice was incorrect, but it was clear to all that eliminating government intervention would result in extreme devaluation. Gambaryan stated, “They used Binance as a scapegoat instead of acknowledging this.

Im März 2024 zog Binance aus dem nigerianischen Markt zurück, nachdem es zu gravierenden regulatorischen Prüfungen und Vorwürfen gekommen war. The CBN voiced worries regarding crypto exchanges managing illegal transactions, leading to demands for a prohibition of Binance and other similar platforms.

In Nigeria, Gambaryan was detained together with his associate, Nadeem Anjarwalla, who holds dual British and Kenyan nationality. After arriving in Nigeria for meetings with government officials about Binance's operations, both were detained.