U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce announced that the U.S. has officially imposed sanctions on the Philippines-based company Funnull and its Chinese national CEO Liu Lizhi, in response to a cryptocurrency scam involving up to $200 million. The company is accused of providing the core computer infrastructure for the scam, causing significant financial losses to a large number of Americans.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, each victim involved in this scam lost an average of over $150,000. Deputy Treasury Secretary Falkender stated that cybercriminal groups like Funnull are plundering people's wealth through technological means, and the U.S. will continue to combat such activities to promote a healthy and compliant development of the virtual asset market.
The sanctions against Funnull and Liu Lizhi were implemented under Executive Orders 13694 and 14114. Investigations revealed that Funnull purchased cloud service IP addresses and resold them to criminal groups for setting up scam platforms, involving hundreds of phishing websites related to cryptocurrency scams.
The company also used a "Domain Name Generation Algorithm" (DGA) to rapidly generate a large number of similar website domain names, providing web page templates for scammers to easily impersonate legitimate brands, evade regulation, and continue their fraudulent activities. Funnull is also accused of deliberately altering code libraries in 2024 to redirect users to scam or gambling sites, some of which are even involved in underground money laundering activities in China.
Liu Lizhi is identified as the main controller of Funnull, directly responsible for internal management and scam operations. The domains he controls are involved in cryptocurrency fraud, phishing attacks, and illegal gambling platforms, posing a serious threat to U.S. national security and financial systems.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has placed Funnull on the sanctions list, noting that it provides technical and platform support for overseas criminal groups, involving intellectual property theft, data misuse, and illegal economic profiteering. Liu Lizhi himself has also been added to the blacklist.
