{"id":30499,"date":"2025-06-05T21:33:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T21:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=30499"},"modified":"2025-06-05T21:33:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T21:33:01","slug":"ofac-sanctions-philippines-based-tech-company-for-facilitating-pig-butchering-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=30499","title":{"rendered":"OFAC Sanctions Philippines-Based Tech Company For Facilitating Pig Butchering Schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned a Philippines-based tech company, Funnull Technology Inc., for providing the computer infrastructure for \u201chundreds of thousands of websites\u201d involved in pig butchering scams, according to a Thursday press release from the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC).<\/p>\n

OFAC also sanctioned Liu Lizhi, a Chinese national working as Funnull Technology\u2019s administrator. According to the press release, Funnull Technology has directly facilitated more than $200 million in losses from scam victims in the U.S. Of those victims, the average losses per individual were over $150,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s action underscores our focus on disrupting the criminal enterprises, like Funnull, that enable these cyber scams and deprive Americans of their hard-earned savings,\u201d said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender in the press release. \u201cThe United States is strongly committed to ensuring the continued growth of a legitimate, safe, and secure digital asset ecosystem, including the use of virtual currencies and similar technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pig butchering schemes are a type of crypto investment scam in which the victim is groomed over a long period of time, akin to a pig being fattened up before the slaughter, before being pressed to contribute large amounts of money into a fraudulent crypto investment. The scams are often but not always romantic in nature, and often begin with an unsolicited text. The majority of the scams are organized by criminal organizations in Southeast Asia, who use victims of labor trafficking \u2014 essentially slaves, kept in terrible conditions \u2014 to carry out the scams.<\/p>\n

Last year, OFAC sanctioned a wealthy Cambodian businessman, Ly Yong Phat \u2014 along with several of his businesses and hotels \u2014 for his role in pig butchering-associated human trafficking and torture.<\/p>\n

Read more: US Treasury Sanctions Cambodian Tycoon With Ties to Pig Butchering Scams<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to OFAC, Funnull Technology supplies cybercriminals with IP addresses, purchased in bulk from cloud service providers worldwide, which are then used to host scam platforms and other malicious web content. These websites and domain names are crafted to mimic trusted websites, tricking the victims into believing their investments are legitimate.<\/p>\n

Liu allegedly \u201cpossessed spreadsheets and other documents containing information about Funnull\u2019s employees, their performance, and their progress on tasks,\u201d OFAC\u2019s press release said. \u201cThese tasks included assigning domain names to cybercriminals, including domains associated with virtual currency investment fraud, phishing scams, and online gambling sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

In placing Funnull Technology and Liu on the Specially Designated Nationals list (SDN), OFAC is barring all U.S. persons \u2013 including citizens overseas and residents living in America \u2013 from transacting with them in any way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned a Philippines-based tech company, Funnull Technology Inc., for providing the computer infrastructure for \u201chundreds of thousands of websites\u201d involved in pig butchering scams, according to a Thursday press release from the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). OFAC also sanctioned Liu Lizhi, a Chinese national working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-30499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}