Congressman French Hill said that the Nigerian government's ongoing imprisonment of U.S. citizen Tigran Gambaryan is jeopardizing the U.S.-Nigeria relationship. Hill shared his statement in a September 11 post on X.
"Tigran Gambaryan is not being held by Iran or Russia - he is being held by our supposed friend, Nigeria," said Hill. "We need to press harder. The Nigerian government must understand that the continued wrongful detention of Tigran is putting our relationship in jeopardy."
Hill's post followed his participation in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing titled "Great Power Competition in Africa." According to a video of the hearing, Hill asked John Bass, Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs for the U.S. State Department, why the administration has not made progress towards securing Gambaryan's release from Nigeria. Bass said, "We're picking our way through some complicated tangles within the Nigerian system, but I'm hopeful we're going to resolve those in the near future." Hill then remarked that he "thinks the response of the government is embarrassing in Nigeria" and said the U.S. needs to "press harder." "This is wrong," Hill said, noting that Gambaryan's health has been deteriorating while imprisoned.
Gambaryan, who worked for the U.S. federal government for ten years before joining the crypto exchange Binance, was invited to Abuja for discussions with Nigerian government officials in February regarding Binance's compliance in the African nation, The Block reported. Gambaryan was placed under house arrest on February 26 and later moved to Kuje Prison and charged with tax evasion and money laundering. Nigerian authorities dropped the money laundering charge, but Gambaryan remains imprisoned and is undergoing a trial for the tax evasion charge. While in prison, Gambaryan has suffered from malaria, pneumonia, and tonsillitis, and he now has a herniated disc in his back that has left him struggling to walk. Gambaryan's attorneys have filed a bail application on medical grounds.
Gambaryan's wife Yuki said in a Change.org petition that the U.S. government should lean on its "strong ties with the Nigerian government to bring an American who has dedicated his entire career to fighting crime and upholding the rule of law back home to his family." According to the petition, the U.S. State Department describes its relationship with Nigeria as being "built on shared interests and values, as well as strong people-to-people ties…The United States and Nigeria enjoy a deep and enduring partnership that spans more than six decades." The State Department also notes that the U.S. "is proud to be one of the largest foreign investors in Nigeria with foreign direct investment totaling $5.6 billion in 2022."
Andrew Adams, a former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official, said that according to an opinion he authored, the U.S. should stop its discretionary fund sharing with Nigeria to incentivize Gambaryan's release. "As a discretionary program," Adams said, "the DOJ, Treasury and State Department are all empowered to cease these transfers under international sharing protocols." By taking this approach, Adams argued that the U.S. government could express its "objection to Nigeria’s abuse of its police power" while holding back funds that could otherwise be going to "the very authorities now engaged in that abuse." The U.S. transferred more than $310 million to Nigeria through this program in 2020.
Gambaryan joined Binance in September 2021, according to a post on Binance's website. During his ten years as a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), he "investigated cases involving national security, terrorism financing, identity theft, distribution of child pornography, tax evasion, and bank secrecy act violations during his award-winning career," according to the post. He also "led several multi-billion dollar cyber investigations including Silk Road corruption investigations BTC-e bitcoin exchange and Mt Gox hack."
