Some United States lawmakers have accused the Nigerian government of abducting and keeping hostage American citizen Tigran Gambaryan to extort his employer, Binance, charging President Joe Biden to talk President Bola Tinubu into releasing Mr Gambaryan.

Sixteen Republican congressmen wrote to Mr Biden on June 4, asking the American president to secure the release of Mr Gambaryan, Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, from Nigerian prison.

“The charges against Mr Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance,” the lawmakers said in the letter seen by Peoples Gazette. “Following these charges, Mr Gambaryan qualifies as a U.S. citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government.”

The American legislators added, “After two rounds of meetings, which were described as starting professional and then becoming increasingly hostile, the government of Nigeria took Mr Gambaryan hostage.”

Binance has repeatedly called for the release of Mr Gambaryan so that further negotiations with Nigerian authorities can continue. The U.S. lawmakers’ letter reechoed Binance’s claim that Nigerian officials contacted them asking for a bribe.

Mr Gambaryan and his colleague, Nadeem Anjarwalla, both flew into Nigeria in February for a meeting with National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu amid Nigeria’s clampdown on cryptocurrency platforms on claims that they aid currency speculators damaging the Nigerian naira.

Though Mr Anjarwalla, Binance’s Africa regional manager, escaped from the NSA custody on March 22 and fled the country, Mr Gambaryan has remained in custody facing trial over money laundering charges.

Since the Nigerian government commenced a clampdown on cryptocurrency, blocking Binance’s website to its Nigerian users, the crypto trading giant disabled its P2P function and exited the Nigerian market. 

Similarly, other cryptocurrency trading platforms, OKX and KuCoin, have disabled their P2P functions for Nigerian users and delisted naira on their platforms.