Huobi Denies Rumors a Senior Executive Was Arrested

Huobi said Monday the rumors alleging one of its senior executives had been arrested were false.

“We have become aware of rumors within our community about the arrest of a Huobi senior executive by local officials,” the company told CoinDesk. “We can share with confidence that these rumors are false. All of Huobi’s management team members have been accounted for and have not been detained or arrested.”

“We understand that the spread of false information can lead to concerns about the safety of user assets, but please rest assured your assets are safe,” the company said. 

Unsubstantiated rumors on social media and other media outlets said the exchange’s chief operating officer, Robin Zhu, was arrested on Monday. The exchange claimed Zhu was on a business trip and will be present at a company meeting on Tuesday morning Beijing time.

Huobi had said its operations were unaffected by unspecified “rumors,” according to an earlier statement on its Chinese website. 

However, a few prominent Chinese crypto firms have already kept news that senior executives were “cooperating” with police to themselves for weeks before publicly disclosing these investigations.

In June, rumors about Dong Zhao, co-founder of Chinese crypto lending platform Renrenbit, “cooperating” with the police for related investigations spread in the Chinese crypto community for over two weeks before the company confirmed the news. 

Another Chinese exchange, OKEx, announced in October founder Star Xu has been under investigation for weeks and the exchange would suspend withdrawals of crypto assets from the platform. The statement came out at least one week after Xu was detained by the police, and users still cannot withdraw their funds