(Adds quotes, background)
WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Activity at Binance was
a pretty clear case of evasion and U.S. authorities needed to
step in aggressively and as quickly as possible, the chairman of
the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Tuesday.
The U.S. agency sued Binance, the world's largest crypto
exchange, on Monday.
"This seemed to be a pretty clear case of evasion and
something that we needed to step in aggressively with and do it
as quickly as possible because this was an ongoing fraud - going
back to 2019 - and ongoing violation of the Commodity Exchange
Act," CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam said in an interview with
CNBC.
Behnam said Binance was a common enterprise comprised of
dozens and dozens of entities scattered across the globe.
"Not having a headquarters, not having a location is not
going to prevent the CFTC from coming after you," he said.
Benham said it was clear that control of the enterprise came
from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and there was clear
documentation of an intent to evade the law.
"So we're going to vigorously continue and fight this case
in court," he told the CFTC.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Susan Heavey and Jason
Neely)
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