Nigeria, April 4 -- The scheduled arraignment of top Binance officials at the Federal High Court in Abuja failed Thursday after the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) said it could not serve charges on the defendants.

A lawyer to the Nigerian tax agency, FIRS, Moses Ideho, informed the judge, Emeka Nwite, that his client made efforts to serve the charges on Tigran Gambaryan, one of the two Binance executives charged in the case, but was denied access.

Mr Gambaryan is being held by the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city.

Binance and its two officials - Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla - were to be arraigned on five counts of money laundering and tax evasion before Mr Nwite on Thursday...