Funnull Technology Inc, a company based in BGC, Manila, has been sanctioned by the United States government after it was involved in a pig killing scam that caused over $200 million in losses to victims worldwide. According to the investigation, Chinese operators were allegedly behind the operation, using Funnull's technology for online love scams and fake crypto investments.
pig killing is a type of online scam where scammers pretend to be friends or lovers online, and encourage the victim to invest in a fake crypto platform. When the victim has no more money to give, they suddenly disappear along with all their investments.
The US Treasury discovered that the company controlled more than 330,000 fake websites, and that it was connected to most of the fraud platforms investigated by the FBI. One of the masterminds, Liu Lizhi, a Chinese citizen, allegedly held internal company documents and was responsible for providing domain names for phishing, fake crypto, and online gambling.
Even more surprising, this company is registered in a government-certified technology park in the Philippines and even enjoys tax benefits. Its office is in the Net Cube Centre in BGC—one of the city's prominent commercial buildings.
So far, there has been no official statement from the Philippine government regarding the issue. This raises questions about whether there is a lack of regulation or if there are insiders involved in the cover-up. It is also being questioned whether there is corruption that allowed this widespread scam to hide behind a legal business.
