Binance exec denied bail; DOJ wants 18 months for Bitfinex hacker

Tigran Gambaryan’s ordeal at the hands of Nigerian authorities is not any closer to an end after an Abuja court dismissed his bail application this week. The Binance executive set out to convince the judge that his medical conditions warranted the attention of a specialist but ended up being accused of “abuse of the judicial process.”

Elsewhere, New York rapper “Razzlekhan” who was part of the duo that stole and laundered 120,000 BTC from Bitfinex might spend less than two years behind bars for her crime. U.S. prosecutors called on the presiding judge to be lenient as she had been cooperative since her arrest two years ago.

Binance’s Gambaryan denied bail, again

Gambaryan, the head of global intelligence at Binance, was denied bail on October 11 in Abuja as the court again sided with the country’s financial industry tsar, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Gambaryan’s bail application was entirely dependent on his assertion that he needed urgent medical attention, which the Nigerian jail system couldn’t provide. In a previous hearing in September, he appeared frail and could barely walk, claiming that authorities had denied him access to a wheelchair despite his herniated disc. 

Judge Emeka Nwite remained unmoved in the hearing this week. 

“There is no evidence before this court that the Nigerian Correctional Service cannot handle the health challenges of the accused,” he ruled.

In May, Judge Nwite dismissed a similar bail application, insisting that the former IRS officer could get the medical attention he required while detained. Gambaryan appealed the ruling, which didn’t sit well with the judge in the recent hearing. 

Judge Nwite stated that his latest request “amounts to abuse of judicial process to admit the accused to bail while an appeal is pending at the court of appeal.”

Gambaryan was detained in February alongside his colleague, Nadeem Anjarwalla, a Kenyan-British citizen based in Nairobi who heads Binance’s African operations. Anjarwalla, however, managed to escape custody, slipping away from a mosque after his evening prayers. Authorities have claimed to have traced him back to Kenya, but he has not been arrested again since. His family’s close ties to the upper echelons of power in the East African country have been said to play a part.

The EFCC has charged Gambaryan and his employer with laundering $35 million. He had also been accused of tax evasion, but those charges have since been dropped. 

Binance said it’s “deeply disappointed” by the Abuja court’s decision, reiterating that Gambaryan has “been unlawfully detained for over 220 days.” The exchange insisted that he was not a decision-maker, so Nigerian authorities had no good reason to hold him. 

It’s worth noting, however, that Nigeria has been summoning Binance’s decision makers, including CEO Richard Teng, for several months, and they have all snubbed the summons.

Yuki, Gambaryan’s wife, pledged to continue fighting for her husband’s freedom, adding that it was “completely unjust to deny someone in Tigran’s condition the opportunity to seek appropriate medical help.”

The case resumes on October 18.

DOJ wants 18 months for $8 billion Bitfinex hacker

While Nigerian authorities bite down in their case against Gambaryan, U.S. feds are calling for the courts to be lenient with one-half of the duo alleged to have stolen and laundered over $7 billion from Bitfinex exchange.

In a filing in the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice (DOJ) recommended 18 months in prison for Heather Morgan, also known by her rap moniker ‘Razzlekhan.’ Such a sentence “would adequately serve the interests of justice.”

Razzlekhan was charged with being an accomplice in her husband Ilya Lichtenstein’s 2016 Bitfinex hack, in which he stole 120,000 BTC, now worth $7.85 billion. DOJ now says that Lichtenstein only told his wife about the hack four years later and directed her to launder the proceeds. 

Initially, the DOJ believed the couple acted together, but Lichtenstein took responsibility for the hack and the laundering in his plea deal.

“The defendant joined the conspiracy with the intent of assisting Lichtenstein in laundering the stolen funds and later understood that in so doing, she was conspiring to conceal his involvement in the previous hack of Bitfinex,” the prosecutors said.

Razzlekhan faced five years behind bars for money laundering conspiracy and another five for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. However, as she has no criminal history, wasn’t directly involved in the hack, and cooperated with the government in its investigations, the DOJ recommended 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

As part of the deal, she must return to Bitfinex the digital assets the government seized from her, collectively worth just over $6 billion.

Razzlekhan will be sentenced on November 15, while her husband will be sentenced a day prior.

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