In Might 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 corporations — together with Fb, Github, PayPal and Twitter/X.
On Might 29, the U.S. Division of the Treasury introduced financial sanctions towards Funnull Know-how Inc., a Philippines-based firm alleged to supply infrastructure for a whole lot of 1000’s of internet sites concerned in digital foreign money funding scams generally known as “pig butchering.” In January 2025, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how Funnull was designed as a content material supply community that catered to international cybercriminals in search of to route their site visitors by 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 immediately facilitated monetary schemes leading to greater than $200 million in monetary losses by Individuals, and that the corporate’s operations had been linked to the vast majority of pig butchering scams reported to the FBI.
It’s typically unlawful for U.S. corporations or people to transact with folks sanctioned by the Treasury. Nonetheless, as Mr. Lizhi’s case makes clear, simply because somebody is sanctioned doesn’t essentially imply massive tech corporations 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.” However, Steve Liu’s 17-year-old account on LinkedIn (within the title “Liulizhi”) had a whole lot of followers (Lizhi’s LinkedIn profile helpfully confirms his birthday) till fairly not too long ago: 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 mentioned the corporate’s “Prohibited international locations coverage” states that LinkedIn “doesn’t promote, license, help or in any other case make out there its Premium accounts or different paid services and products 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 underneath 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 lots 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 shortly sever ties with the corporate.
Liu Lizhi’s PayPal account.
In a report launched at this time, Silent Push discovered Lizhi nonetheless operates quite a few Fb accounts and teams, together with a non-public Fb account underneath the title Liu Lizhi. One other Fb account clearly linked 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 folks in the US, and a whole lot of thousands and thousands have been misplaced based mostly on the web sites he’s been internet hosting,” mentioned Zach Edwards, senior menace researcher at Silent Push. “It’s loopy that the overwhelming majority of huge tech corporations 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 % 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 mentioned the corporate repeatedly 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 at all times prohibit folks from having a presence on its platform. However, 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 through his main electronic mail addresses at Hotmail and Gmail bounced as undeliverable. Likewise, his 14-year-old YouTube channel seems to have been taken down not too long ago.
Nonetheless, anybody serious about viewing or utilizing Mr. Lizhi’s 146 laptop code repositories can have no downside discovering GitHub accounts for him, together with one registered underneath the NiceLizhi and XXL4 nicknames talked about within the Treasury sanctions.
One among 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,” although that suspended message doesn’t show when one visits these particular person profiles.
In response to questions, GitHub mentioned 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 a substitute of eradicating them. In keeping with its coverage, GitHub takes care that customers and clients aren’t impacted past what’s required by legislation.
The entire follower accounts for the XXL4 GitHub account look like Mr. Lizhi’s, and have been suspended by GitHub, however their code remains to be accessible.
“This consists of conserving public repositories, together with these for open supply tasks, out there 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 mentioned 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 isn’t read-only.”
“It’s an odd message that doesn’t talk, ‘It is a sanctioned entity, don’t fork this code or use it in a manufacturing atmosphere’,” Edwards mentioned.
Mark Rasch is a former federal cybercrime prosecutor who now serves as counsel for the New York Metropolis based mostly safety consulting agency Unit 221B. Rasch mentioned 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 social gathering.
Rasch mentioned monetary establishments have very mature methods for severing accounts tied to individuals who change into topic to OFAC sanctions, however that tech corporations 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 corporations don’t essentially do a great job with that, particularly for companies you could simply click on and join,” Rasch mentioned. “It’s doubtlessly a threat and legal responsibility for the tech corporations concerned, however solely to the extent OFAC is prepared 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 venture that allowed web sites to make sure that units utilizing legacy browsers may nonetheless render content material in newer codecs. After the Polyfill area modified fingers, at the very least 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 folks 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 offers 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 companies 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 to take the web sites down,” reads a Treasury assertion.
In the meantime, Funnull seems to be morphing practically all points of its enterprise within the wake of the sanctions, Edwards mentioned.
“Whereas earlier than they may have used 60 DGA domains to cover and bounce their site visitors, we’re seeing much more now,” he mentioned. “They’re making an attempt to make their infrastructure more durable 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 ought to 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 linked to Mr. Lizhi.
