$200M Crypto Scam: OFAC Sanctions Funnull as Experts Find Ties to Huione Pay, Triad Nexus
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a technology firm headquartered in the Philippines, and its administrator, Liu Lizhi.
The company has been implicated in running a “pig butchering” scam.
$200M Scam Uncovered
According to the official press release, Funnull has stolen over $200 million from American investors. OFAC has also placed two of Funnull’s cryptocurrency addresses on its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List to restrict their access to financial systems.
In response, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a public advisory, outlining key technical indicators, such as infrastructure components and IP addresses tied to Funnull’s scam operations.
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender, in an official statement, said
“Today’s action underscores our focus on disrupting the criminal enterprises, like Funnull, that enable these cyber scams and deprive Americans of their hard-earned savings. The United States is strongly committed to ensuring the continued growth of a legitimate, safe, and secure digital asset ecosystem, including the use of virtual currencies and similar technologies.”
Connection to Triad Nexus and Huione Pay
According to the findings by blockchain intelligence Chainalysis, Funnull Technology Inc. enabled cybercriminals by purchasing IP addresses in bulk from major cloud service providers and selling them to operators of fraudulent investment platforms. This infrastructure allowed scammers to host malicious websites that mimicked legitimate investment platforms, thereby deceiving victims into investing in non-existent opportunities.
Funnull was a central player in a network dubbed by security researchers as “Triad Nexus,” which includes more than 200,000 unique hostnames, many of which are associated with investment scams, fake trading apps, and suspect gambling networks. OFAC identified two crypto addresses linked to Funnull Technology Inc., used for receiving cybercriminal payments.
These addresses are tied to scam-related infrastructure and show connections to Huione Pay, which was recently flagged by FinCEN as a major money laundering concern.
Further investigation by blockchain security firm Elliptic revealed that the two addresses in question received more than $4 million in total.
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