ONSA should have transferred Binance executives to EFCC, says ex-DSS boss

Dennis Amachree, a former assistant director of the Department of State Services (DSS), says the office of the national security adviser (ONSA) should have transferred Nadeem Anjarwalla, a Binance executive, to the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the secret police.

Arrested in February, Anjarwalla, Binance’s regional manager for Africa, escaped from the custody of the ONSA on March 25, and fled the country on “a smuggled passport”.

Speaking during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today programme, Amachree said the ONSA is a security agency with no detention facility.

The ex-DSS director said Anjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan, his colleague at Binance, should have been placed on a watchlist with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).

He said the images and names of the Binance executive should have been flagged at all airports across the country.

“If the man has been flagged as a threat or a suspected person, he should have been watchlisted,” Amachree said.

“I don’t know whether the NSA has a detention facility. The NSA is an advisory body to the President.

“So, if he (NSA Nuhu Ribadu) felt that the suspects should be remanded, he should have sent him to the EFCC or the DSS to keep until the date of the court but to keep him in a guest house where he has access to a telephone?

“For them now to allow him to go and pray? I think there are a lot of loopholes and lapses there.

“We have held heads of state in detention and they prayed where they live and eat and sleep. So, I don’t see why this particular guy will be allowed to go to the nearest mosque to pray and disappeared. There is a compromise.”

Amachree said the fleeing suspect must have collaborated with some “conniving” security agents.

“I’m happy they’ve arrested some of them. Let them interrogate them and tell us how much he gave them,” he said.

On February 28, two of Binance’s top executives — Anjarwalla, a 37-year-old British-Kenyan and Binance’s regional manager for Africa; and Gambaryan, a 39-year-old US citizen and Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, were detained by the Nigerian authorities for weeks.

Anjarwalla and Gambaryan had flown into Nigeria but had their passports seized by ONSA.

On March 12, Anjarwalla was transferred to a local hospital after he fell ill while in detention in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, following the arrest of the two executives as a part of a broader clampdown on crypto platforms, a federal high court in Abuja ordered Binance Holdings Limited to provide the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with comprehensive data or information on all persons from Nigeria trading on its platform.

The federal government, on March 25, also accused Binance of evading tax and failing to register with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), charging the cryptocurrency firm with a criminal offense.