US Treasury Sanctions Company Helping Pig Butchering Crypto Scams

So, like, the U.S. Treasury just put a company in the Philippines on blast. They're saying this company, called Funnull Technology Inc., was helping out those nasty 'pig butchering' online scams. You know, the ones where people trick you into putting money into fake crypto stuff? Yeah, those.

The folks at the Treasury said on Thursday that Funnull was basically buying up a ton of internet addresses and then, like, selling them to cybercriminals. Crazy, right? They also sanctioned this guy named Liu Lizhi, who they say runs Funnull. He's apparently Chinese and around 40, maybe living in Shanghai or Ganzhou. Reuters tried to find contact info for him and asked Funnull for a comment, but no luck yet. They even looked for Funnull in the Philippines' company list, but couldn't find it. Hmm.

These crypto scams are a massive problem, like, a billion-dollar industry. It's run by organized crime and even involves, like, human trafficking, which is just awful. They use fake websites to rip people off. Earlier this year, some cybersecurity researchers from Silent Push linked Funnull to a bunch of these scam sites. They also found thousands more linked to suspected gambling or money laundering. So messed up.

Pig butchering scams started in China, but now they're targeting people all over the world. A company called Chainalysis, which looks into blockchain stuff, said recently that the money made from these scams is at a record high. They think it's partly because scammers are using AI to make their pitches sound better and talk to way more people at once. Wild, huh? Makes you wonder what other shady things AI is being used for.