Federal regulators have sued Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, accusing the company of running an illegal exchange in the United States and commingling billions of dollars' worth of customer funds.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street's primary regulator, alleges the company acted in "blatant disregard" of U.S. securities laws. It also named Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, as a defendant.
"Through 13 charges, 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 in a statement Monday.
Binance didn't immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.
Gensler alleged that Zhao and Binance misled investors about risk controls, and that they "attempted to evade US securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so that they could keep high-value U.S. customers on their platforms."
The SEC suit follows a complaint earlier this year from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That agency accused Binance and Zhao of violating US derivatives trading laws in multiple ways, including allegedly secretly coaching "VIP" customers within the United States on how to evade compliance controls.
