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yesterday

U.S. Treasury Sanctions Funnull Technology for Enabling $200 Million ‘Pig Butchering’ Scams

It freezes the company’s U.S. assets after an FBI alert revealed how Funnull sold bulk IP addresses and template code to crypto fraudsters.

Representations of cryptocurrencies are seen in this illustration, August 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Overview

  • The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Philippines-based Funnull Technology and its administrator Liu Lizhi, barring U.S. persons from transactions and freezing any U.S. holdings.
  • An FBI flash alert linked over 332,000 domains to Funnull infrastructure between October 2023 and April 2025, detailing the use of domain generation algorithms and rapid IP migrations to evade takedowns.
  • Americans have suffered more than $200 million in losses through these romance-baiting scams, with average individual losses exceeding $150,000, according to OFAC.
  • Funnul allegedly purchased legitimate web code repositories and maliciously altered them to redirect visitors of trusted sites to fraud or online gambling platforms, cybersecurity researchers confirmed.
  • The move highlights intensified U.S. efforts to combat ‘pig butchering’ investment fraud, which contributed to the record $16.6 billion stolen from Americans by cybercriminals in 2024.