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The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based firm allegedly at the center of a vast cyber fraud network enabling cryptocurrency scams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Funnull is accused of providing technical infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of websites linked to so-called \u201cpig butchering\u201d scams \u2014 complex social engineering schemes where fraudsters pose as romantic or financial partners to coax victims into fake crypto investments. <\/p>\n
U.S. victims have reported more than $200 million in losses associated with Funnull-linked sites, with an average individual loss of over $150,000. Its administrator, Chinese national Liu Lizhi, was also sanctioned, according<\/a> to the Treasury Department. <\/p>\n The sanctions, issued by the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control under Executive Orders 13694 and 14144, were coordinated with the FBI. The bureau is releasing a cybersecurity advisory to help private-sector partners identify and take down sites tied to Funnull\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cThese actions reflect our commitment to disrupting the networks that power cybercrime and target Americans,\u201d Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Treasury officials, Funnull purchased IP addresses in bulk from cloud service providers and resold them to scammers hosting fake investment platforms and phishing sites. It also used domain generation algorithms to mass-produce web addresses and provided design templates, helping cybercriminals impersonate legitimate financial services.<\/p>\nCrypto scamming and phishing\u00a0<\/h2>\n