Yahoo Finance SEC sues Binance and accuses crypto exchange of mishandling funds
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was sued by the US’s top financial watchog on Monday, accused of mishandling customer funds and lying to regulators and investors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused Binance of mixing “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sending them to a separate company controlled by Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao.
“We allege that Zhao and the Binance entities not only knew the rules of the road, but they also consciously chose to evade them and put their customers and investors at risk,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division.
Among other charges, the SEC alleges that, while Zhao and Binance publicly claimed that US customers were restricted from transacting on Binance.com, “Zhao and Binance in reality subverted their own controls to secretly allow high-value US customers to continue trading on the Binance.com platform”.
The SEC also alleges that, while Zhao and Binance publicly claimed that Binance.US was created as a separate, independent trading platform for US investors, “Zhao and Binance secretly controlled the Binance.US platform’s operations behind the scenes”.
More details soon …
