The United States Department of the Treasury has sanctioned a technology company based in the Philippines, Funnull Technology Inc., for providing the computer infrastructure for “hundreds of thousands of websites” involved in pig carnage scams, according to a press release from the Thursday of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury.
Ofac also sanctioned Liu Lizhi, a Chinese national who works as a Funnull Technology administrator. According to the press release, Funnull Technology has directly facilitated more than $ 200 million in losses of the victims of scammers in the United States of those victims, the average losses per individual were greater than $ 150,000.
“Today’s action emphasizes our approach to interrupting criminal companies, such as Funnull, that allow these cyber scams and deprive Americans of their savings won with so much effort,” said Treasury Undersecretary Michael Faulkender in the press release. “The United States is strongly committed to guaranteeing the continuous growth of an ecosystem of legitimate digital assets, safe and insurance, including the use of virtual currencies and similar technologies.”
Pork carnage schemes are a type of cryptographic investment fraud in which the victim prepares for a long period of time, similar to a pig fattening before the killing, before being pressed to contribute large amounts of money in a fraudulent cryptographic investment. The scams are often, but not always, of a romantic nature, they often begin with an unre requested text. Most scams are organized by criminal organizations in Southeast Asia, who use victims of labor traffic, essentially slaves, in terrible conditions, to carry out the scams.
Last year, ofac sanctioned a rich Cambodian businessman, Ly Yong Phat, along with several of his businesses and hotels, for his role in trafficking and torture of people associated with the pig butcher shop.
Read more: Treasury sanctions from the US
According to Ofac, Funnull technology supplies cybercriminals with IP addresses, bought from the bulk of cloud service providers around the world, which are then used to accommodate scam platforms and other malicious web content. These websites and domain names are designed to imitate trusted websites, deceiving victims to believe that their investments are legitimate.
Liu supposedly “had spreadsheets and other documents that contain information about Funnull employees, their performance and their progress in tasks,” according to the OFAC press release. “These tasks included assigning domain names to cybercriminals, including domains associated with virtual currency investment fraud, phishing scams and online game sites.”
By placing the funnullada and Liu technology on the list of specially designated nationals (SDN), ofac is prohibiting all American people, including citizens abroad and residents who live in the United States, of making transactions with them in any way.
