On August 21, 2025, the Huntley Police Department in Illinois arrested 31-year-old Alhambra, California resident Xu Li for serving as a money mule for a PayPal refund scam, where:
- The scammers will send a fraudulent email falsely claiming their victims, in this case a 60-year-old male, were charged $499 for a subscription.
- Once remotely connected to their victims’ computer, the scammer will trick them into thinking they got a refund of $25,000.
- The victim will be asked to pay the money back by withdrawing money from their bank account and convert it into cryptocurrency or hand it off to a designated courier, or money mule.
Li has since been charged with attempted theft by deception (between $10k and $100k) and attempted theft of over $5,000.