The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has said sanctions on Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based tech firm, and its alleged administrator, Chinese national Liu Lizhi. The firm is accused of providing critical infrastructure to thousands of fraudulent crypto websites, contributing to victim losses exceeding $200 million, as reported by the FBI.
Funnull’s operations reportedly included obtaining large numbers of IP addresses from cloud service providers and selling them to hackers. These resources enabled scammers to host and operate counterfeit versions of legitimate investment platforms, deceiving unsuspecting users into parting with their cryptocurrency. In a particularly egregious instance in 2024, Funnull allegedly acquired a code repository used by web developers and modified it to redirect visitors from legitimate websites to fraudulent ones, including online gambling sites.
Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based company that provides computer infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of websites involved in virtual currency investment scams, commonly known as…
— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) May 29, 2025
The sanctions extend to two cryptocurrency wallet addresses associated with Funnull, which, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, were likely used to receive payments from cybercriminals. Chainalysis also identified Funnull as a central player in a network dubbed the “Triad Nexus,” encompassing over 200,000 unique hostnames linked to investment scams and fake trading applications.
Source: Chainalysis
As a result of these sanctions, all assets of Funnull and Liu Lizhi within U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. individuals and entities are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Violations of these sanctions can result in significant civil and criminal penalties. This action underscores the U.S. government’s commitment to disrupting the infrastructure that enables large-scale cryptocurrency fraud and protecting investors from sophisticated online scams.
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