In a year of dramatic crypto stories, among the most striking was that of Tigran Gambaryan, a former IRS agent and Binance executive who was detained for eight months in Nigeria on charges of money laundering.
Taking in daring escapes, courtroom collapses, and Congressional resolutions, the unfolding saga was akin to a Hollywood movie—but with very real consequences for those involved. Here’s how the story unfolded.
Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen, joined Binance as the crypto exchange’s VP of Global Intelligence and Investigations in September 2021. He brought with him a wealth of experience from a decade as a former special agent with the IRS Cyber Crimes Unit, where he’d investigated cases involving national security, terrorism financing and child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as well as taking on some of the biggest investigations in crypto to that point—such as the Silk Road corruption investigations and the Mt. Gox hack.
At the time, Gambaryan said, Binance would “work closely with our colleagues in compliance to identify criminals and refer them for prosecution.” Little could he have imagined that just a couple of years later, he himself would be in jail, facing trial on char…
