June 5 (Reuters) - The world's largest crypto exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao operated a "web of deception" that included artificially inflating its trading volumes and diverting customer assets, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged on Monday.
The agency on Monday sued Binance and Zhao for failing to restrict U.S. customers from its platform and misleading investors about its market surveillance controls, as well as for operating an unregistered securities exchange.
"We allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.
The world's biggest crypto exchange, Binance was founded in Shanghai in 2017 by CEO Changpeng Zhao, a Canadian citizen born and raised until the age of 12 in China.
Binance's global trading platform, Binance.com dominates the crypto trading landscape, last year processing trades worth about $65 billion a day with up to 70% of the market.
Persons:
Zhao, Binance, ”, Gary Gensler, BNB, Changpeng Zhao, Jonathan Stempel, Hannah Lang, Tom Wilson, Nick Zieminski
Organizations:
U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, Washington , D.C, SEC, Sigma, Binance, U.S . Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Justice, Reuters, Silvergate, Thomson
Locations:
Washington ,, Shanghai, Canadian, China, Cayman Islands, Silvergate Bank, New York, Washington, London