In Could 2025, the U.S. authorities sanctioned a Chinese language nationwide for working a cloud supplier linked to the vast majority 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 Could 29, the U.S. Division of the Treasury introduced financial sanctions in opposition to Funnull Know-how Inc., a Philippines-based firm alleged to supply infrastructure for lots of of hundreds of internet sites concerned in digital foreign money funding scams often known as “pig butchering.” In January 2025, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how Funnull was designed as a content material supply community that catered to overseas cybercriminals searching for to route their site visitors by way 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 instantly facilitated monetary schemes leading to greater than $200 million in monetary losses by Individuals, and that the corporate’s operations have been linked to the vast majority 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 huge 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 identify “Liulizhi”) had lots of of followers (Lizhi’s LinkedIn profile helpfully confirms his birthday) till fairly 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 nations coverage” states that LinkedIn “doesn’t promote, license, help or in any other case make obtainable its Premium accounts or different paid services to people and firms 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 below the identify 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 have 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 shortly sever ties with the corporate.
Liu Lizhi’s PayPal account.
In a report launched at present, Silent Push discovered Lizhi nonetheless operates quite a few Fb accounts and teams, together with a personal Fb account below the identify Liu Lizhi. One other Fb account clearly related to Lizhi is a tourism web page for Ganzhou, China known 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 focusing on individuals in america, and lots of of tens of millions 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 finished something to chop ties with this man.”
The FBI says it acquired practically 150,000 complaints final yr involving digital belongings and $9.3 billion in losses — a 66 % enhance from the earlier yr. Funding scams have been the highest crypto-related crimes reported, with $5.8 billion in losses.
In an announcement, a Meta spokesperson stated the corporate constantly takes steps to fulfill its authorized obligations, however that sanctions legal guidelines are complicated and assorted. 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 person for violating its insurance policies.
Makes an attempt to succeed in Mr. Lizhi through his main e-mail addresses at Hotmail and Gmail bounced as undeliverable. Likewise, his 14-year-old YouTube channel seems to have been taken down lately.
Nevertheless, anybody focused on viewing or utilizing Mr. Lizhi’s 146 laptop code repositories could have no downside discovering GitHub accounts for him, together with one registered below the NiceLizhi and XXL4 nicknames talked about within the Treasury sanctions.
Considered 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 known as NexaMerchant, which advertises itself as a cost gateway working with quite a few American monetary establishments. Apparently, this profile’s “followers” web page reveals a number of different accounts that look like Mr. Lizhi’s. The entire account’s followers are tagged as “suspended,” despite the fact 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 prospects are Specifically Designated Nationals or different denied or blocked events, however that it locks these accounts as a substitute of eradicating them. In keeping with its coverage, GitHub takes care that customers and prospects aren’t impacted past what’s required by regulation.
The entire follower accounts for the XXL4 GitHub account look like Mr. Lizhi’s, and have been suspended by GitHub, however their code continues to be accessible.
“This consists of protecting public repositories, together with these for open supply initiatives, obtainable and accessible to help private communications involving builders in sanctioned areas,” the coverage states. “This additionally means GitHub will advocate for builders in sanctioned areas to get pleasure from 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 method, 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 setting’,” 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 Overseas Belongings Management (OFAC) sanctions an individual or entity, it then turns into unlawful for companies or organizations to transact with the sanctioned get together.
Rasch stated monetary establishments have very mature techniques for severing accounts tied to individuals who change into topic to OFAC sanctions, however that tech firms could also be far much less proactive — significantly 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 “Get pleasure from Ganzhou” tourism web page for Ganzhou, China. Picture: Silent Push.
In July 2024, Funnull bought the area polyfill[.]io, the longtime dwelling of a official open supply challenge that allowed web sites to make sure that gadgets utilizing legacy browsers might nonetheless render content material in newer codecs. After the Polyfill area modified palms, at the very least 384,000 web sites have 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 have been linked to Chinese language felony cash laundering operations.
The U.S. authorities says Funnull offers domains for web sites on its bought IP addresses, utilizing area era algorithms (DGAs) — applications 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 additionally enable them to shortly change to totally different domains and IP addresses when official suppliers try and take the web sites down,” reads a Treasury assertion.
In the meantime, Funnull seems to be morphing practically all features of its enterprise within the wake of the sanctions, Edwards stated.
“Whereas earlier than they could have used 60 DGA domains to cover and bounce their site visitors, we’re seeing much more now,” he stated. “They’re making an attempt 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 needs to be holding their toes 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.
