Untintedened Cryptocurrency Story in Nigerian Prison
Gambaryan says he wanted to hear the Ogundjobes explain. On the phone, Gambaryan remembers that the EFCC employee started crying, apologizing many times, thank God for being released.
It was too much for Gambierian to process. He listened quietly without accepting the apology. At the height of the pouring of the Ogundjobi, he noticed that an American friend was calling, a secret service agent he worked with in the past. Gambaryan did not know it yet, but the agent turned out to be in Rome for a conference with the old boss of Gambaryan, head of the IRS-CI cybercrime department, Jarod Koopman, and they both wanted to bring him beer and pizza to their hotel.
Gambaryan told the Ogundjobi that he had to go and he was done with the call.
Cold And a windy December day on the Capitol hill, former federal agents and prosecutors, staff of the State Department and Congress Aid are mixed in a plush room in the Rayburn House office building. One by one, the members of the congress come in and shake hands with a tigran Gambaryan, who wears a dark blue suit and tie, his beard again prevails and a head purely shaved, limping only slightly from the emergency surgery of his spine, which underwent a month earlier in Georgia.
Gambaryan poses for photos and chats with every legislator, assistant and employee of the State Department long enough to thank them for their role in returning him home. When the French Hill says it is good to see him again, Gambaryan hopes he hopes to smell better than during their meeting in Que.
The reception is one of a series of VIP welcomes that Gambierian received on his return. At Georgia’s airport, McCormick had come to greet him and gave him an American flag, who flew over the Capitol building the previous day. The White House released a statement Noting that President Biden called Nigerian president and “emphasized his admission of President Tinubu’s leadership in securing the release of humanitarian grounds for US citizen and former US law enforcement official.”
The Thanksgiving statement, later, I learned, was part of the deal that the US government had achieved Nigeria, which also included supporting the Binance investigation – which is still ongoing. Nigeria continues to pursue both Binance and Anjaval in absentia. A Binance spokesman wrote in a statement that the company was “relieved and grateful” that Gambaryan was at home and expressed thanks to anyone who worked to secure his release. “We are eager to leave this episode behind us and continue to work for a brighter future for the blockchain industry in Nigeria and around the world,” the statement said. “We will continue to defend ourselves from false claims.” Nigeria government officials did not respond to Wired’s repeated requests for a comment on the Gambierian case.
After the reception, Gambaryan and I go into a taxi outside and ask him what is next for him. He says he can return to the government if the new administration will have it – and if Yuki will put up with another move back to DC. (Crypto News Site Coindesk reported last month The fact that he was recommended by the insider for the cryptocurrency industry with Links with President Trump for roles as a senior as a head of cryptocurrency in SEC or a high -level position in the FBI Cyber ​​Division) before examining something like this, he says unclear, “” I probably need time to straighten my head. “
I ask him how he feels that the experience in Nigeria has changed him. “I guess you angered me?” He replies with a strange light tone, as if he thought about the question for the first time. “It made me want to avenge those who did this.”
Revenge for Gambaryan can be more than a fantasy. He is a case of human rights against the Nigerian government, which began during his detention, and hopes that there will be an investigation by the Nigerians, whom he claims to have held him for hostage for a better part of a year than a year than your life. Sometimes, he says, he even sent messages to individual employees who are responsible, telling them, “You will see me again” that what they did the “shame of the badge” that he could forgive what they did to him, but not And what they did to his family.
“Was it stupid to do it? Probably – he tells me in the cabin. “I was on the floor with back pain and just bored.”
As we get out of the car at his hotel in Arlington and Gambaryan light a cigarette, I tell him that despite his description of himself as more jerk than before his time in prison, he actually seems more peaceful to me, More than in years – when I covered his serial removal of corrupt federal agents, cryptocurrency launders and children’s abusers, he had always impressed me as angry, driven, ruthless in pursuing his investigations.
Gambaryan replies that if he looks more relaxed now, it’s just because he’s happy to be home -ugly to see his family and friends so that he can walk again, not to be caught between the forces, so much more than the greater than the Himself, by governing a conflict, it had so little to do with it. He didn’t die in prison.
As for the fact that it is driven by anger in the past, Gambaryan disagrees.
“I’m not sure it was anger. It was justice, “he says. “I wanted justice. And I still do it. “
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