In Might 2025, the U.S. authorities sanctioned a Chinese language nationwide for working a cloud supplier linked to nearly all of digital foreign money funding rip-off web sites reported to the FBI. However a brand new report finds the accused continues to function a slew of established accounts at American tech firms — together with Fb, Github, PayPal and Twitter/X.
On Might 29, the U.S. Division of the Treasury introduced financial sanctions in opposition to Funnull Expertise Inc., a Philippines-based firm alleged to offer infrastructure for tons of of hundreds of internet sites concerned in digital foreign money funding scams often called “pig butchering.” In January 2025, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how Funnull was designed as a content material supply community that catered to overseas cybercriminals looking for to route their site visitors by means of U.S.-based cloud suppliers.
The Treasury additionally sanctioned Funnull’s alleged operator, a 40-year-old Chinese language nationwide named Liu “Steve” Lizhi. The federal government says Funnull straight facilitated monetary schemes leading to greater than $200 million in monetary losses by People, and that the corporate’s operations had been linked to nearly all of pig butchering scams reported to the FBI.
It’s usually unlawful for U.S. firms or people to transact with individuals sanctioned by the Treasury. Nevertheless, as Mr. Lizhi’s case makes clear, simply because somebody is sanctioned doesn’t essentially imply large tech firms are going to droop their on-line accounts.
The federal government says Lizhi was born November 13, 1984, and used the nicknames “XXL4” and “Good Lizhi.” Nonetheless, Steve Liu’s 17-year-old account on LinkedIn (within the title “Liulizhi”) had tons of of followers (Lizhi’s LinkedIn profile helpfully confirms his birthday) till fairly just lately: The account was deleted this morning, simply hours after KrebsOnSecurity sought remark from LinkedIn.
Mr. Lizhi’s LinkedIn account was suspended someday within the final 24 hours, after KrebsOnSecurity sought remark from LinkedIn.
In an emailed response, a LinkedIn spokesperson stated the corporate’s “Prohibited international locations coverage” states that LinkedIn “doesn’t promote, license, assist or in any other case make out there its Premium accounts or different paid services to people and corporations sanctioned by the U.S. authorities.” LinkedIn declined to say whether or not the profile in query was a premium or free account.
Mr. Lizhi additionally maintains a working PayPal account beneath the title Liu Lizhi and username “@nicelizhi,” one other nickname listed within the Treasury sanctions. PayPal didn’t reply to a request for remark. A 15-year-old Twitter/X account named “Lizhi” that hyperlinks to Mr. Lizhi’s private area stays energetic, though it has few followers and hasn’t posted in years.
These accounts and plenty of others had been flagged by the safety agency Silent Push, which has been monitoring Funnull’s operations for the previous yr and calling out U.S. cloud suppliers like Amazon and Microsoft for failing to extra rapidly sever ties with the corporate.
Liu Lizhi’s PayPal account.
In a report launched at the moment, Silent Push discovered Lizhi nonetheless operates quite a few Fb accounts and teams, together with a personal Fb account beneath the title Liu Lizhi. One other Fb account clearly related to Lizhi is a tourism web page for Ganzhou, China referred to as “EnjoyGanzhou” that was named within the Treasury Division sanctions.
“This man is the technical administrator for the infrastructure that’s internet hosting a majority of scams concentrating on individuals in america, and tons of of thousands and thousands have been misplaced primarily based on the web sites he’s been internet hosting,” stated Zach Edwards, senior risk researcher at Silent Push. “It’s loopy that the overwhelming majority of huge tech firms haven’t performed something to chop ties with this man.”
The FBI says it obtained almost 150,000 complaints final yr involving digital belongings and $9.3 billion in losses — a 66 p.c improve from the earlier yr. Funding scams had been the highest crypto-related crimes reported, with $5.8 billion in losses.
In a press release, a Meta spokesperson stated the corporate repeatedly takes steps to fulfill its authorized obligations, however that sanctions legal guidelines are complicated and diversified. They defined that sanctions are sometimes focused in nature and don’t all the time prohibit individuals from having a presence on its platform. Nonetheless, Meta confirmed it had eliminated the account, unpublished Pages, and eliminated Teams and occasions related to the consumer for violating its insurance policies.
Makes an attempt to succeed in Mr. Lizhi by way of his major electronic mail addresses at Hotmail and Gmail bounced as undeliverable. Likewise, his 14-year-old YouTube channel seems to have been taken down just lately.
Nevertheless, anybody curious about viewing or utilizing Mr. Lizhi’s 146 pc code repositories can have no downside discovering GitHub accounts for him, together with one registered beneath the NiceLizhi and XXL4 nicknames talked about within the Treasury sanctions.
Certainly one of a number of GitHub profiles utilized by Liu “Steve” Lizhi, who makes use of the nickname XXL4 (a moniker listed within the Treasury sanctions for Mr. Lizhi).
Mr. Lizhi additionally operates a GitHub web page for an open supply e-commerce platform referred to as NexaMerchant, which advertises itself as a fee gateway working with quite a few American monetary establishments. Apparently, this profile’s “followers” web page reveals a number of different accounts that seem like Mr. Lizhi’s. The entire account’s followers are tagged as “suspended,” regardless that that suspended message doesn’t show when one visits these particular person profiles.
In response to questions, GitHub stated it has a course of in place to determine when customers and clients are Specifically Designated Nationals or different denied or blocked events, however that it locks these accounts as an alternative of eradicating them. In keeping with its coverage, GitHub takes care that customers and clients aren’t impacted past what’s required by regulation.
The entire follower accounts for the XXL4 GitHub account seem like Mr. Lizhi’s, and have been suspended by GitHub, however their code continues to be accessible.
“This contains retaining public repositories, together with these for open supply initiatives, out there and accessible to assist private communications involving builders in sanctioned areas,” the coverage states. “This additionally means GitHub will advocate for builders in sanctioned areas to take pleasure in higher entry to the platform and full entry to the worldwide open supply group.”
Edwards stated it’s nice that GitHub has a course of for dealing with sanctioned accounts, however that the method doesn’t appear to speak threat in a clear means, noting that the one indicator on the locked accounts is the message, “This repository has been archived by the proprietor. It’s not read-only.”
“It’s an odd message that doesn’t talk, ‘This can be a sanctioned entity, don’t fork this code or use it in a manufacturing atmosphere’,” Edwards stated.
Mark Rasch is a former federal cybercrime prosecutor who now serves as counsel for the New York Metropolis primarily based safety consulting agency Unit 221B. Rasch stated when Treasury’s Workplace of International Property Management (OFAC) sanctions an individual or entity, it then turns into unlawful for companies or organizations to transact with the sanctioned social gathering.
Rasch stated monetary establishments have very mature programs for severing accounts tied to individuals who develop into topic to OFAC sanctions, however that tech firms could also be far much less proactive — notably with free accounts.
“Banks have established methods of checking [U.S. government sanctions lists] for sanctioned entities, however tech firms don’t essentially do a great job with that, particularly for providers which you could simply click on and join,” Rasch stated. “It’s probably a threat and legal responsibility for the tech firms concerned, however solely to the extent OFAC is keen to implement it.”
Liu Lizhi operates quite a few Fb accounts and teams, together with this one for an entity specified within the OFAC sanctions: The “Take pleasure in Ganzhou” tourism web page for Ganzhou, China. Picture: Silent Push.
In July 2024, Funnull bought the area polyfill[.]io, the longtime house of a reputable open supply venture that allowed web sites to make sure that gadgets utilizing legacy browsers may nonetheless render content material in newer codecs. After the Polyfill area modified fingers, a minimum of 384,000 web sites had been caught in a supply-chain assault that redirected guests to malicious websites. In keeping with the Treasury, Funnull used the code to redirect individuals to rip-off web sites and on-line playing websites, a few of which had been linked to Chinese language legal cash laundering operations.
The U.S. authorities says Funnull supplies domains for web sites on its bought IP addresses, utilizing area era algorithms (DGAs) — packages that generate giant numbers of comparable however distinctive names for web sites — and that it sells internet design templates to cybercriminals.
“These providers not solely make it simpler for cybercriminals to impersonate trusted manufacturers when creating rip-off web sites, but in addition permit them to rapidly change to completely different domains and IP addresses when reputable suppliers try and take the web sites down,” reads a Treasury assertion.
In the meantime, Funnull seems to be morphing almost all features of its enterprise within the wake of the sanctions, Edwards stated.
“Whereas earlier than they may have used 60 DGA domains to cover and bounce their site visitors, we’re seeing much more now,” he stated. “They’re attempting to make their infrastructure tougher to trace and extra difficult, so for now they’re not going away however extra simply altering what they’re doing. And much more organizations must be holding their ft to the fireplace.”
Replace, 2:48 PM ET: Added response from Meta, which confirmed it has closed the accounts and teams related to Mr. Lizhi.
