Binance and Binance.US have been accused by the SEC of redirecting more than $12 billion in customer assets to entities controlled by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao between 2019 and 2021. The SEC has requested a temporary freeze on assets at Binance.US and wants to freeze Binance and Zhao's assets, but has only filed a temporary restraining order on Binance.US's assets.
The agency used bank information to connect the dots and found that most of the assets were funneled to Merit Peak, a proprietary trading firm with Zhao's self-made wealth from the digital asset business. The SEC has filed hundreds of pages of documents supporting its case against Binance, including internal Binance documents and partial testimony from former Binance.US CEOs. Sam Bankman-Fried, who redirected $8 billion from FTX to Alameda Research, has also been charged for redirecting customer funds to backfill losses at Alameda and is scheduled to stand trial in October.
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