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      US agency sues top crypto exchange Binance and CEO, seeks permanent trading bans

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 28 March, 2023 - 17:29

    Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao sitting at a table and speaking into a microphone, wearing a shirt with a Binance logo.

    Enlarge / Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao at the Web Summit 2022 conference in Lisbon, Portugal. (credit: Getty Images | Ben McShane )

    The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) yesterday sued Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, saying the company and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, are charged with "willful evasion of federal law and operating an illegal digital asset derivatives exchange."

    Binance committed "numerous violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations," the agency said. In a press release announcing the civil enforcement action, the agency said its litigation "seeks disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, permanent trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the CEA and CFTC regulations."

    The CFTC alleges that the defendants operated the trading platform "through an intentionally opaque common enterprise, with Zhao at the helm as Binance's owner and chief executive officer." The agency said the defendants "chose to knowingly disregard applicable provisions of the CEA while engaging in a calculated strategy of regulatory arbitrage to their commercial benefit." Samuel Lim, Binance's former chief compliance officer, was charged with aiding and abetting the violations.

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      Mathias Poujol-Rost ✅ · Sunday, 24 April, 2022 - 15:04 edit

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      Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange, reportedly under investigation

      Tim De Chant · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 14 May, 2021 - 16:43 · 1 minute

    Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange, reportedly under investigation

    Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images News )

    Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is under investigation by a laundry list of US government agencies, including the US Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a report by Bloomberg. The agencies are probing Binance for potential criminal violations, the report says, though the company has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

    The investigations come on the heels of a report by Chainalysis that traced $2.8 billion worth of illicit bitcoin on exchange and trading platforms. Of that, $756 million went through Binance. Most of the suspect accounts received small amounts, but the majority of the illicit cryptocurrency flowed to a few hundred accounts that received between $100,000 to $100 million. Government officials are said to be focused on money laundering and tax evasion.

    The recent ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline that led to gasoline shortages has sharpened the focus on cryptocurrencies’ role in illegal activities. In that case, it's reported that Colonial paid the attackers $5 million to return control of the pipeline’s operations. In another, a ransomware gang recently posted personnel records from District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department after the department didn’t cave to their demands of a $4 million ransom. The group, known as Babuk, is behind other ransomware attacks and frequently requests payment in bitcoin.

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