The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is taking action against a Philippines-based company accused of facilitating a popular crypto investment scam.
In a statement, the Treasury Department says that Funnull Technology Inc. is facing US sanctions for allegedly providing computer infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of websites engaged in pig butchering scams.
Perpetrators of pig butchering scams use fake identities to build online relationships with unsuspecting individuals with the aim of introducing them to fraudulent cryptocurrency investment opportunities. Criminal organizations based in Southeast Asia largely carry out the scheme by exploiting victims of human trafficking.
Funnull purportedly buys IP addresses from major cloud services companies and sells these to cybercriminals to host scam platforms and malicious websites.
The company also provides services that make it easier for bad actors to impersonate trusted brands and allow them to quickly change to a different domain name and IP address when the legitimate providers attempt to take the websites down.
In 2014, Funnull bought and altered a repository of codes used by web developers to redirect visitors of legitimate sites to scam and online gambling sites, some of which are associated with Chinese criminal money laundering operations.
The Treasury Department says that Funnull has ties to the majority of the crypto investment scam websites that were reported to the FBI. US-based victims claim losing over $200 million to these schemes, or an average of $150,000 per individual.
The OFAC is also imposing sanctions against Funnull’s administrator, Chinese national Liu Lizhi, who was in possession of documents that contain information about the company’s employees, including their performance and progress on tasks.
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