A FORMER assistant director of the Department of State Service (DSS), Mr. Dennis Amachree, has said that the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) is not a security agency with known detention facility and should have transfer custody of fleeing Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or the secret Police.
Amachree, speaking on a television programme on Monday, March 25, also said Anjarwalla and his co-detainee, Tigran Gambaryan, should have been placed on watch-list with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), since their detention in Abuja in late February, with their photos and names flagged at all airports across the country.
Amachree stated: “If the man has been flagged as a threat or a suspected person, he should have been watch-listed.
“I don’t know whether the NSA has a detention facility; the NSA is an advisory body to the President. So, if he (NSA, Mallam 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, not to keep him in a guest house where he has access to 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 lived, ate and slept. 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.”
He stressed that the fleeing suspect must have compromised some security agents, adding: “I’m happy they’ve arrested some of them. Let them interrogate them and tell us how much he gave them.”
The two Binance executives were taken into custody when he arrived in Nigeria following the crackdown on the cryptocurrency exchange company and a criminal investigation has been launched against the platform, which is accused of being used for money laundering.
Indeed, charges have been filed in court against the company, Gambaryan and Anjarwalla, the regional manager in Africa, who reportedly “fled Nigeria using a smuggled passport,” according to the Office of the NSA, in a statement on Monday.
Nigeria’s tax agency, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), had filed a four-count charge on tax evasion against Binance and also accused it of “complicity in aiding customers to evade taxes through its platform.” They were due to appear in court on April 4.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest crypto economy, in terms of trade volume, with many citizens using crypto as the country experienced surging inflation and a declining local currency.
Spokesman for the Office of the NSA, Zakari Mijinyawa, in the statement, said: “The personnel responsible for the custody of the suspect have been arrested and a thorough investigation is ongoing to unravel the circumstances that led to his escape from lawful detention.”
He was reported to have fled from a guest house in Abuja after guards allowed him to go to a nearby mosque for prayers.
Anjarwalla, who holds both British and Kenyan citizenship, was detained along with Gambaryan, a United States (US) citizen, on February 26, this year, when they arrived in Nigeria following the crackdown on the company.
Binance ended trading in Naira on its platform in early March after Nigerian authorities accused it of being used for money laundering and “terrorism” financing without providing evidence publicly.
