The executive of Binance was charged and remanded in Kuje prison

Tigran Gambaryan, an officer of Binance Holdings Limited, was remanded in the Kuje Correctional Center on Monday by the Federal High Court in Abuja while his bail application was processed.

Following Gambaryan’s Monday plea of not guilty to the money laundering accusations brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Justice Emeka Nwite issued the decision.

Binance, Gambaryan, and his runaway colleague Nadeem Anjarwalla were charged by the EFCC with hiding the source of the $35,400,000 in revenue that Binance made in Nigeria, knowing full well that the money was the product of illegal activities.

The arraignment of Tigran Gambaryan and Binance Holdings Limited was postponed on April 4 due to a protest raised by the attorney for Gambaryan, Mark Mordi (SAN).

After the EFCC failed to properly serve the charge sheet on Binance Holdings Limited, Mordi had claimed that his client could not be charged.

The second defendant, according to EFCC attorney E.E. Iheanacho, was a national representative of Binance; the case was brought against him on the company’s behalf, but it was dismissed.

Justice Nwite rendered a decision in the case, stating that the company’s service on Gambaryan was appropriate.

According to him, service on a main agent of a business operating within the jurisdiction shall take place in accordance with Section 478 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act.

Justice Nwite continued, saying that the prosecution only had to prove that the individual being served was a Binance agent.

The judge held, “Does the second defendant qualify as an agent of Binance? From the above statement, the second defendant is the duly appointed representative of Binance. The second defendant is bound to receive a summons on behalf of Binance.

“The service of the second defendant on behalf of the first defendant is proper. The court should proceed with the arraignment of the defendants.”

Furthermore, he pointed out that in an affidavit submitted by Gambaryan’s attorney, he stated that Anjarwalla and his client went to Nigeria to represent Binance at a meeting with Nigerian government representatives.

Gambaryan was then read the allegations, but he entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Binance and himself.

The trial’s start date was asked for by the prosecution’s attorney.

However, Mordi, Gambaryan’s attorney, begged the judge to approve his client’s request for release.

Mordi said, “I am happy to go to trial but there is a question of the second defendant’s custody. He has been in custody for 40 days. This is a foreign national. There’s nothing more significant than where he is going after here. We are created by God and the greatest thing anyone can have is freedom.”

However, Iheanacho told the court that: “The proper place to be post-arraignment is a correctional centre. We have Nigerians convicted in the US. His detention was proper. They raised a preliminary objection, which the magistrate court dismissed.”

On the other hand, Mordi requested the court to keep his client under the EFCC’s custody.

The judge then postponed the case until April 18 in order to decide Gambaryan’s bail request and May 2 in order to start the trial.