Gambaryan says he wanted to hear Ogunjobi explaining himself. On the phone, Remember Gambaryan, the EFCC official began to cry and repeatedly apologized and thanked God for being released.
For Gambaryan it was too much to process. He listens quietly without accepting the excuse. In the midst of Ogunjobi’s outpouring, he noted that an American friend has a secret service agent with which he has worked in the past. Gambaryan didn’t know this yet, but the agent happened to be in Rome for a conference with the old boss of Gambaryan, head of the IRS-CI Cybercrime division, Jarod Koopman, who both beer and pizza in his hotel wanted to bring.
Gambaryan told Ogunjobi he should go, and he ended the call.
On a cold and windy December day on Capitol Hill, former federal agents and prosecutors, government officials and congress assistance in a soft room in the Rayburn House Office building. One by one, members of the congress come in and shake hands with Tigran Gambaryan, who wears a dark blue suit and tie, his beard cut off again and shaved head, just slightly from the emergency operation on his spine, that he had an undergoing month Earlier in Georgia.
Gambary pose for photos and chats with every legislature, assistant and official of the State Department long enough to thank them for their role to get him home. If French Hill says it’s good to see him again, Gambaryan says he hopes he smells better than he did during their meeting in Kuje.
The reception was welcomed one in a series of VIP that Gambaryan received on his return. At the Georgia airport, McCormick representative came to greet him and gave him an American flag that flew above the Capitol building the day before. The White House announced a statement indicating that President Biden called the Nigerian President and “emphasized his appreciation for President Tinubu’s leadership to ensure the release of Humanitarian grounds of the US citizen and former US law enforcement officer Tigran Gambaryan . “
The thank -you statement, I later learned, was part of the agreement that the US government entered into with Nigeria, which also includes the help of the investigation into Binance – which is still underway. Nigeria continues both Binance and Anjarwalla in absentia. A Binance spokesman wrote in a statement that the company was “relieved and grateful” that Gambaryan was home and resigned to everyone who worked to secure his release. “We are eager to put this episode behind us and continue to work a better future for the Blockchain industry in Nigeria and around the world,” the statement adds. “We will continue to defend ourselves against false claims.” Nigerian government officials did not respond to Wired’s repeated requests for comments on Gambaryan’s case.
After the reception, Gambary and I get in a taxi outside, and I ask him what’s next for him. He says he may be in government again if the new administration will have him – and if Yuki will return to DC again. (Crypto-News Website CoinDesk reported last month that he was recommended by Cryptocurrency Industrial Insiders with connections with President Trump for roles as senior as head of Crypto assets at the SEC or a high level in the FBI’s cyber division.) Before He is considering something like that, he says vaguely, “I probably need time to get my head ready.”
I ask him how he feels that the experience in Nigeria has changed him. “I think it made me angry?” He responds in a strange light tone, as if he is thinking about the question for the first time. “It made me take revenge against those who did.”
Revenge for Gambaryan is perhaps more than a fantasy. He is doing a human rights lawsuit against the Nigerian government that began during his detention, hoping that there will be an investigation into the Nigerians he claims to have held him hostage for the better part of a year of His life. Sometimes, he says, he even sent messages to individual officials he held responsible, and said to them, ‘You will see me again’, that what they did, ‘brought the shame to the badge’, that he can forgive what they did to him, but not what they did to his family.
“Was it stupid for me to do that? Probably, ”he tells me in the cabin. “I was on the floor with back pain and just bored.”
As we step out of the car in his hotel in Arlington and Gambaryan light a cigarette, I tell him that, despite his description of himself as evil than before his time in prison, he actually looks quieter and happier to me than in the Past – this – this when I took his series from corrupt federal agents, crypto -money washers and abusers of children, he always considered me evil, driven, relentless in the targets for his investigations.
Gambaryan responds that, if he looks more relaxed now, it’s just because he’s lucky to be at home – grateful to see his family and his friends, to be able to walk again, not to be between the powers as bigger than what He does not make a conflict that has had so little to do with him. Not to be dead in prison.
What is driven by anger in the past does not agree.
“I’m not sure if it was anger. It was justice, ”he says. “I wanted justice. And I still do it. “