The American Treasury Department has sanctioned a technological company based in the Philippines, Funnull Technology Inc., for having provided the IT infrastructure for “hundreds of thousands of websites” involved in pig scams, according to a press release Thursday from the Foreign Treasury Control Office (OFAC).
OFAC also sanctioned Liu Lizhi, a Chinese national working as an administrator of Funnull Technology. According to the press release, Funnull Technology directly facilitated more than $ 200 million in loss of victims of scam in the United States of these victims, the medium-sized losses per individual exceeded $ 150,000.
“Today’s action underlines our attention to the disturbance of criminal companies, such as Funnull, which allow these cyber-escroqueries and deprive the Americans of their hard-won economies,” said assistant secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender in the press release. “The United States is strongly determined to ensure the continuous growth of a legitimate, safe and secure digital asset ecosystem, including the use of virtual currencies and similar technologies.”
Pork butcher’s diets are a type of cryptographic investment scam in which the victim is treated over a long period, similar to a fattened pork before slaughter, before being in a hurry to contribute large sums of money in a fraudulent cryptographic investment. The scams are often but not always romantic in nature and often start with an unsolicited text. The majority of scams are organized by criminal organizations in Southeast Asia, which use victims of work traffic – essentially slaves, guarded in terrible conditions – to carry out the scams.
Last year, the OFAC sanctioned a wealthy Cambodian businessman, Ly Yong Phat – as well as several of its companies and hotels – for its role in trafficking and torture associated with the butcher shop.
Read more: Us Treasury Cambodian tycoon sanctions with links with butcher’s scams
According to the OFAC, Funnull Technology provides cybercriminals with IP addresses, bought in bulk from cloud service providers worldwide, which are then used to host scam platforms and other malicious web content. These domain websites and names are made to imitate trust websites, encouraging victims to believe that their investments are legitimate.
Liu would have “possessed calculation sheets and other documents containing information on Funnull employees, their performance and their progress on tasks,” said OFAC press release. “These tasks included the allocation of domain names to cybercriminals, including the areas associated with investment fraud in virtual currencies, phishing scams and online game sites.”
By placing Funnull Technology and Liu on the list of specially designated nationals (SDN), the OFAC prohibits all the United States – including citizens abroad and residents living in America – to transginate with them in any way.
