US Treasury Sanctions Company Over Pig Butchering Scams

Okay, so get this! The big bosses over at the U.S. Treasury are putting the squeeze on a company based in the Philippines. Why? Well, they're saying this company, called Funnull Technology Inc., is basically helping out those nasty internet scams we've all heard about, the 'pig butchering' ones.

Like, seriously, the Treasury folks put out a statement saying Funnull is buying up tons of internet addresses and then selling them off to cybercriminals. That's just messed up, right?

They also slapped sanctions on a guy named Liu Lizhi, who they think is running the show at Funnull. IDK, I tried to find contact info for him, but it was a no-go. He's like 40 and supposedly has ties to Shanghai and Ganzhou in China. And trying to get a comment from Funnull? Yeah, crickets. Couldn't even find 'em in the Philippines' company records.

These virtual currency scams, where people get tricked into putting money into fake crypto stuff, are HUGE. We're talking a billion-dollar problem, run by organized crime and fueled by human trafficking. It's just awful.

These scams often use fake websites to rip people off. Earlier this year, some cybersecurity experts found that Funnull was linked to a whole bunch of these scam sites. Plus, they think they're also tied to tons of other sites for gambling or cleaning money.

Pig butchering scams started in China, but now they're hitting people all over the world. You know, the folks at Chainalysis, a company that looks at blockchain stuff, said that these scams made a record amount of money earlier this year. Maybe it's because they're using that new AI tech to make their pitches sound better and talk to more people at once? It's wild how they keep finding new ways to trick people, right?