Free the Binance One
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Hello and welcome to the weekend.
Regular readers of The Weekly may remember a fascinating story I highlighted earlier in the year that centred on two Binance executives in Nigeria. Well, there’s been a development.
So the story goes, following meetings to try and resolve some issues the crypto exchange was facing in the country, Binance’s Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla were detained by Nigerian authorities in February this year. In 2023, the company was forced to stop operations in the country as it was said to be enabling money laundering, financing of terrorism and illegal forex trading. Authorities also claimed Binance had failed to register with Nigeria’s tax service. Following a series of meetings, Gambaryan, the company’s head of financial crime compliance, and Anjarwalla, director for West and East Africa, were arrested. The men’s families complained that their respective embassies in Nigeria had done little to help the situation. In March, under the cover of Ramadan prayers, and by bribing his guards, Anjarwalla managed to escape house arrest, and fled the country. Reports from other news outlets say the British-Kenyan citizen has been holed up in Kenya.
In May, Binance alleged that Nigerian government officials were soliciting a bribe in the region of $150 million to end the investigation, an allegation the country's Ministry of Information and National Orientation denied.
While his co-accused is living life on the run somewhere, and the spat between Binance and Nigerian authorities escalated, poor Gambaryan has been diligently serving his sentence and his health has been deteriorating. Well, this week, the Federal High Court in Abuja has granted his release as the country withdrew all charges against him. Hopefully, his newfound freedom will help him follow a similar recovery journey to that of Schabir Shaik.
Anyway, on to other matters. As the competition continues to heat up in the local data centre market, yet another facility has opened in Joburg. And this time it brings two of the world’s biggest data centre operators within a five-minute drive of each other. Slightly to the west of OR Tambo airport on the East Rand, Equinix opened its new JN1 facility. You can watch one of our new commercial videos, ITWeb TV Biz, with Equinix South Africa's Sandile Dube , who provides more background on the company.
Just 3km down Isando Road from Equinix’s JN1 is Teraco’s data centre campus – Teraco was acquired by Digital Realty in 2022. Interesting that the two rival US-owned data centre facilities are so close to each other and to the airport, perhaps so international guests don’t have to face the Midrand traffic.
And a final note, I’d like to wish an extended member of the ITWeb family, Layla Hichens, the best of luck as she represents South Africa at the JKA World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, in the coming days.
Have a great weekend.
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