According to a bombshell report by the Financial Times, internal company documents indicate that Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, hid significant links to China for years, contrary to claims that it left the country after the 2017 crypto crackdown.
The documents reveal instructions from CEO Changpeng Zhao and senior executives to conceal the company's Chinese presence, which included an office used until at least 2019 and a Chinese bank for salary payments.
This comes amid a lawsuit filed by U.S. regulators against Binance for allegedly serving American clients illegally and deliberately avoiding regulation.
Hagerty accused Binance of conducting business in emerging markets in a "predatory fashion" and suggested that the company was part of a Chinese state-backed network.
Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao have repeatedly denied having ties to China and the Chinese government.
In the meantime, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of failed crypto firm FTX, was recently slapped with new charges in the U.S. for allegedly bribing a Chinese official with at least $40 million to regain access to trading accounts frozen by local authorities. The allegations add on to the fraud case filed against him last year following FTX's collapse.