Yuki Gambaryan, the wife of Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial crime compliance at Binance and a former U.S. federal agent, stated that her husband's health is deteriorating severely. She expressed concern that he may never fully recover. Yuki shared her statement in an Aug. 26 YouTube video.
"It has been six months since I last saw my husband, since our children last held their father's hand," said Gambaryan. "Tigran Gambaryan, my husband and a former U.S. federal agent, has now been detained in a Nigerian prison for half a year. His health is deteriorating to the point where he can no longer walk. Between bouts of malaria, pneumonia, and the unimaginable mental toll of his detention, he is now reaching the point of no return."
Yuki posted her video on the six-month anniversary of Gambaryan's detention by Nigerian officials. According to the video, Yuki has spent those months in a "living nightmare," pleading with the Nigerian government to release her husband and asking the U.S. government to help secure his release.
Tigran and Yuki Gambaryan
| Yuki Gambaryan/Change.org
According to CoinDesk, Gambaryan was invited to meet with Nigerian authorities in February in Abuja. After initially being held under house arrest, Gambaryan was transferred to Kuje prison in March and charged with financial crimes, to which he pleaded not guilty. His trial began in June but was paused in July due to a judiciary holiday. Gambaryan has experienced health complications, collapsing in court in May and appearing in court in a wheelchair in June. In addition to being denied adequate medical treatment, Gambaryan is also being denied appropriate access to his legal team.
Yuki wrote in a Change.org petition that Gambaryan is innocent and the charges against him are "bogus." According to the petition, Gambaryan "is renowned worldwide for his dedication to cleaning up the crypto industry and collaborating with governments and stakeholders to combat financial crimes." During his career with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a cybercrime investigator, Gambaryan "brought down some of history’s most notorious cyber criminals, including drug dealers, human-traffickers, and money launderers." Yuki said her husband joined Binance "to make crypto safer and fix past compliance issues," and during his work with Binance, he even provided training to the same Nigerian authorities now imprisoning him.
Sixteen members of Congress wrote a letter asking President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens to classify Gambaryan as a "U.S. Citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government" and escalate his case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. They said Gambaryan's detention "has been marked by excessive and harsh treatment," according to the letter. "It is crucial to emphasize that the charges against Mr. Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance," they said. Signees included Rich McCormick, whose district encompasses Gambaryan's hometown of Suwanee, Georgia, and Michael McCaul, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Gambaryan joined Binance in 2021 as the company's vice president of Global Intelligence and Investigations, according to Binance's website. He previously spent ten years as a special agent of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Cyber Crimes Unit in Washington D.C., where he led several multi-billion-dollar cyber investigations including investigations into AlphaBay and the Mt. Gox hack.