By Damilare Adeleye
One of the two executives of Binance who were arrested in Nigeria has escaped the custody of the country’s security operatives, the Nigerian Voice has learnt.
Sources privy to the incident who disclosed, identified the escapee as Nadeem Anjarwalla.
It was said that Mr Anjarwalla, 38, fled from the Abuja guest home where he and his colleague were detained on Friday, March 22, when guards took him to a nearby mosque for prayers because of the ongoing Ramadan fast.
According to insiders, there is a likelihood that Anjarwalla, who also has Kenyan citizenship, flew out of Abuja on a Middle East airliner.
It remains unknown how Mr Anjarwalla got on an international flight even though his British passport, with which he entered Nigeria, is still in the hands of Nigerian authorities.
Reuters had reported how a court said that Anjarwalla and his colleague, Tigran Gambaryan should remain in detention for at least two more weeks in Nigeria after appearing in court for the first time last Wednesday even though they had not been charged with a crime.
Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan who is Binance’s regional manager for Africa, flew to Nigeria following the country’s decision to ban several cryptocurrency trading websites and were detained on arrival on February 26.
The two men appeared in a Federal High Court in Abuja last Tuesday.