US Treasury Sanctions Company Linked to Pig Butchering Crypto Scandals

So, get this: The U.S. Treasury is cracking down on a company in the Philippines that they say is helping out those nasty 'pig butchering' crypto scams. You know, where folks get tricked into putting their money into fake crypto stuff? Yeah, that.

The Treasury dropped a statement saying they're going after Funnull Technology Inc. They think this company was buying up huge amounts of internet addresses and then selling them to cybercriminals. Like, seriously? And guess what else? They're also sanctioning a guy named Liu Lizhi, who they think is an administrator for Funnull. The Treasury says he's 40 and has addresses in Shanghai and Ganzhou.

Reuters tried to find contact info for Mr. Liu and Funnull but couldn't get a response. They even checked the Philippines' company list, and Funnull wasn't there. Kinda sketchy, right?

These fake crypto investment scams are apparently a billion-dollar problem now. Organized crime is running them, and sadly, there's lots of human trafficking involved. It's pretty awful. These scams often use fake websites to rip people off.

Earlier this year, some cybersecurity folks at Silent Push looked into it and said they linked Funnull to a bunch of these scam websites. Like, thousands of them! They also saw sites linked to things like gambling or money laundering. Yikes.

These 'pig butchering' scams started in China, but now they're hitting people all over the world. Chainalysis, a company that looks at blockchain stuff, said earlier this year that the money from these scams is at a record high. They think AI might be helping the scammers get better at tricking people and talking to more targets at once. It's wild how they use technology for such bad stuff.

It makes you think, how can we spot these scams before it's too late? And what more can folks do to protect themselves online?