The U.S. Treasury just hit Funnull Technology Inc.—a Philippines-based tech company—with sanctions for allegedly helping run a massive crypto scam that affected victims out of roughly $200 million. The move comes as U.S. authorities crack down harder on how crypto tools are being used to fuel organized online fraud.

The Treasury says Funnull played a crucial role in helping scam networks pull off what’s known as “pig butchering” schemes—where scammers build fake online relationships to win people’s trust, then convince them to dump money into bogus crypto investments. Funnull allegedly helped them scale by buying huge batches of IP addresses and flipping them to fraud rings, who used them to run shady websites.

The U.S. also slapped sanctions on Liu Lizhi, a 40-year-old Chinese national who’s being called one of the main players behind Funnull. Officials say Liu wasn’t just involved, he was basically running the show, handling key parts of the operation that helped these scams take off and keep going.

By giving these scammers the tools they needed to look legit and stay under the radar, Funnull basically helped them run their cons without getting caught. That kind of support lets fraud rings hit people across different apps and platforms, wiping out life savings before vanishing into thin air.

Officials say any assets tied to the company or Liu in the U.S. are now frozen, and anyone in the U.S, whether a person or business, is barred from working with them. What this really shows is that the U.S. isn’t just coming after the scammers themselves, but also the behind-the-scenes players giving them the tools to pull it off at scale.

This case is just the latest in a string of global crackdowns on crypto-related scams, as regulators try to keep up with how fast the digital finance space is moving. Officials are also pushing crypto companies to tighten up their internal checks so they don’t end up getting dragged into the next big bust.

These sanctions show the Treasury isn’t messing around, they’re ready to track down and shut off even the behind-the-scenes players in big fraud schemes. With crypto scams popping up more and more, we should probably be safe and protect our funds.

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