Digital Infrastructure as Scam Factory -- "Technology Providers Cannot Escape Responsibility"
May 29, 2025: US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) officially designated Philippines-based IT infrastructure company Funnull Technology Inc. and its manager Liu Lizhi as sanction targets. They provided technical infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of websites worldwide, serving as the foundation for a new form of cryptocurrency investment fraud called "pig butchering." OFAC explained this action was to block cybercrime ecosystems threatening US national security and economy -- conducted in cooperation with the FBI, which simultaneously published security advisories with technical details about Funnull IP addresses, domain generation algorithms (DGA), and malicious code insertion methods. How pig butchering works: fraudsters establish long-term fake romantic or friendship relationships with victims online; gradually build trust over weeks or months; introduce "investment opportunities" in cryptocurrency; guide victims to fraudulent platforms controlled by the scammers; encourage increasing deposits until victims try to withdraw and discover they cannot. The "digital slaughterhouse" name: the fraud is named after the agricultural practice of fattening pigs before slaughter -- victims are "fattened" with small early returns before the operation collapses and steals all deposited funds. Funnull role: provided bulletproof hosting (infrastructure resistant to takedown requests) that enabled the fraud platforms to operate without being shut down by legitimate hosting providers; managed thousands of rotating domains to evade blocking; the designation enables US sanctions blocking any US person from transacting with Funnull and freezing any US-jurisdiction assets. The broader significance: sanctioning the infrastructure provider rather than just the operators signals that the US government holds technology enablers accountable for the criminal operations they knowingly support.
