The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao for secretly controlling Binance.US as part of a "web of deception" to evade U.S. laws, among other charges. Reuters earlier reported thatThe SEC also said Binance artificially inflated trading volumes on the platform, diverted customer funds and failed to restrict U.S. customers from its platform and misled investors about market surveillance controls.
The charges filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., are the latest in a string of enforcement actions brought by the agency in a bid to curtail the cryptocurrency industry, which SEC Chair Gary Gensler has described as "the wild West." "This is yet another targeted attack that is devastating in the crypto ecosystem. Pretty soon, the SEC won’t have anyone left to sue," said John Reed Stark, a former chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement.