On June 10, 2025, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in Crossville, Tennessee arrested California residents Hongqi Cui and Li Muxi for serving as money mules for a PayPal refund scam, where:
- The scammers will send fraudulent invoices to their victims under the guise of PayPal and gain remote access to their computers.
- The victims will be manipulated into withdrawing large amounts of cash and handing them off to designated couriers, or money mules.
Cui and Muxi were arrested after attempting to collect $70,000 from a male victim and have since been charged with:
- Theft of property
- Evading arrest
- Resisting arrest.
The two are currently being held in the Cumberland County Jail each on a $305,000 bond as their case remains under active investigation in coordination with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS).