and Administration Commission of the State Council and that Binance had joined a group "aiming to facilitate" the Belt and Road Initiative. On 28 October 2020, Forbes staff released leaked documents showing that Binance and Changpeng Zhao created an elaborate corporate structure designed to intentionally deceive United States regulators and secretly profit from cryptocurrency investors located in the country. Binance officially blocks access from IP addresses located in the United States, but "potential customers would be taught how to evade geographic restrictions", Forbes claimed. In May 2021 it was reported that Binance was under investigation by both the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Department of Justice on allegations of money laundering and tax offenses. In February 2022, Binance took a $200 million stake in Forbes. In March 2022, amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao, refused to ban users from Russia, citing "financial freedom". Binance later softened the tone of their opposition but not their policy, and also pointed to their donation of $10 million for humanitarian needs in Ukraine. In April 2022, Reuters reported that, in 2021, Binance shared information with Rosfinmonitoring about funds raised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's network. On 27 May 2022, Binance announced the registration of its legal entity in Italy, and has plans of opening offices and expanding the local team in the area. CEO Changpeng Zhao also shared information regarding Binance's registration with France's market regulator. The company is also seeking registration in more European countries, such as Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and Austria. On 13 June 2022 Binance announced that users would, for an unspecified period of time, be unable to withdraw their funds held in Bitcoin, as the value of cryptocurrencies suffered serious declines. Two hours after that announcement, Bitcoin withdrawals were allowed to resume. Binance has a strong brand presence in Africa. Binance sponsored the Africa Cup of Nations in 2021. It is also taking crypto education to many countries on the continent. Binance invested US$500 million towards the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk that completed in October 2022. Following the investment, the company announced the creation of a team to work on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies could be helpful to Twitter. On 8 November 2022, Binance offered to buy rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX's non-US operations (FTX.com) to help cover the latter's liquidity crunch. Binance backed out of the deal