The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), working with the FBI, has sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a company based in the Philippines that acts as a cloud infrastructure provider for hundreds of thousands of websites linked to cryptocurrency investment scams, known as "pig butchering." The company’s administrator, Liu Lizhi, was also sanctioned.

Funnell provided services such as bulk IP address leasing, domain name generation, and website templates that enabled cybercriminals to rapidly create convincing scam sites. Many of these sites impersonated legitimate financial brands, redirecting victims into fake trading platforms.

Victims, often encouraged through fabricated romantic relationships, transferred funds that were supposed to grow through cryptocurrency investments—only to lose their money and face demands for additional fees or "taxes" that never materialized. U.S.-based losses reported to authorities exceeded $200 million, with average individual losses over $150,000.

Law enforcement exposure was supported by research from cybersecurity firms like Silent Push and analytics from Chainalysis, along with FBI and OFAC data. These investigations revealed that Funnull’s network routed scam traffic through major cloud providers, using dynamic domain and IP switching to evade detection and takedown attempts.

Sanction actions included blacklisting Funnull and Liu, freezing any U.S.-based assets under their control, and prohibiting U.S. persons and businesses from engaging with them. They also flagged two crypto wallets linked to Funnull’s operations, which collectively received multiple millions in illicit activity.

The move highlights a growing global crackdown on the infrastructure that fuels large-scale online scams. By targeting service providers rather than just individual scammers, authorities aim to dismantle the backbone that enables these schemes—and protect potential victims worldwide.

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Source: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/05/u-s-sanctions-cloud-provider-funnull-as-top-source-of-pig-butchering-scams/