I mean, they could. They probably won't though. They can barely do it when it's handed to them through a multi billion dollar company, the odds of them tracking a direct booking through a private site is slim to none.

The person doesn't even have to be a US citizen to pull this off. Create a US LLC, rent the apartment through a broker, hire a shady property manager under the table and run the whole thing remotely. The only reason people use Airbnb is because it's easy. If they made it harder, people would just go around.