Tigran Gambaryan, a United States citizen and former Internal Revenue Service agent, has been detained in Nigeria since February 2024.
United States diplomats from the State Department have been privately pressuring Nigerian officials to release detained Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan since at least June 2024, a new report from The New York Times revealed.
According to the outlet, Gambaryan’s imprisonment has been a “significant factor” in the strained relationship between the two countries. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and United States Ambassador to Nigeria Richard Mills have been pressing the issue with Nigerian officials.
Ambassador Mills met with Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s cabinet in September 2024 to discuss the issue further and push for Gambaryan’s release, which Nigeria’s attorney General maintains will only happen after a trial.
