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Planet Money

The 'Crypto Wizard' vs. Nigeria

11 Feb 2025

Transcription

What happened to Tigran Gambaryan in Nigeria?

415.266 - 421.492 Nadeem Anjawala

When he showed up... They're like, oh, just come in, just sit down. They'll come in in a little bit. We waited for a couple of hours.

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421.512 - 424.175 Dina Temple Raston

Were you worried that you were waiting that long?

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425.156 - 426.017 Nadeem Anjawala

It started getting a little weird.

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426.618 - 435.243 Dina Temple Raston

Teagan was there with a colleague named Nadeem Anjawala. Nadeem was younger. He wasn't a former cop. He was more like Binance's business guy for Africa.

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435.796 - 458.844 Tigran Gambaryan

And the two of them were waiting to meet with the head of the NSA to talk through how Binance and Nigeria could work better together. But that meeting never happened. Instead, eventually, a bunch of Nigerian officials filed into the room. None of them were really making eye contact with Tigran or Nadim. And when the meeting did start, Tigran realized it was not what they signed up for.

459.67 - 468.858 Nadeem Anjawala

one of the guys who was actually responsible for this, he comes in, kind of slaps a folder on the table, starts saying, you know, you've destroyed the Nigerian economy.

469.338 - 476.805 Dina Temple Raston

The Nigerian authorities told them that Binance had tanked their currency, that they'd laundered money, and that they'd evaded taxes.

477.405 - 495.585 Tigran Gambaryan

According to Tigran, they basically said, we are not going to let you leave until we are satisfied that Binance is on the up and up. Among other things, they said they wanted Binance to pay those taxes and also some fines. And they said they wanted more control over the platform, including information on Binance's users.

496.285 - 500.949 Nadeem Anjawala

We want user records for every single Nigerian user. Until that's done, you can't leave.

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