Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told the Justice Department that it should investigate cryptocurrency exchange Binance for potentially lying to lawmakers about its business practices, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing a letter. They alleged that Binance may have made false statements, including whether its U.S. affiliate Binance.US was in fact a separate business as Binance had declared. The news comes just days after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao, alleging that the platform violated the country's securities rules, mishandled customer funds and misled investors. The Wall Street regulator also accused Binance of taking insufficient steps to prohibit U.S. investors from accessing its unregulated exchange. From 2019 up until 2023, the company shuttled around $70B through accounts at collapsed U.S. lenders Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank, according to a filing dated Wednesday, underscoring Binance's U.S. ties even though it doesn't have authority to operate there. “This is a serious matter,” the senators wrote in a Wednesday letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Bloomberg reported . In March, Warren, Hollen and Roger Marshall (R-KS) called on Binance to disclose its balance sheet and raised doubts over its regulatory compliance, accusing it of repeatedly evaded regulators and hid basic financial information from the public. The SEC isn't the only regulator scrutinizing Binance. Last month, a Canadian securities regulator sent an order to Binance to probe whether it tried to circumvent the country's regulations and compliance controls. And, in March, it got sued by the Commodity and Futures Trade Commission for allegedly breaching certain trading and derivatives rules. More on the Crypto Clampdown Crypto exchange Bybit exits Canadian market, following in Binance's footsteps Coinbase willing to take fight with SEC to the Supreme Court - report Binance: The SEC Strikes (Again)
