Bizarre. I (US-based engineer with an Upwork account) was invited into a less sophisticated variant of the scam in spring 2021:
> Nice to meet you. I am looking for a US person who do business with me. You can earn money with a few cooperation. Do you know Upwork or Toptal site?
They also had the text of the message in a GitHub repo. I tried reporting them to GitHub, Upwork, and Toptal, but I don't think they knew what to do with it? I assumed my scammer was looking to evade banking rules or sanctions, but it could be for either fake employment or actual work with a US-based persona like in this case.
Same, although I was never asked to impersonate anybody. They just wanted to work using my real name/identity, and would throw some money my way every month. At the time I was annoyed/pissed, but after reading this I respect that they at least had the decency to ask for my permission lol.
Honestly, this is 100% Upwork's fault. Their platform is a race to the bottom, yet they make it very difficult/impossible for people from countries that can actually afford to make a living with those rates to sign up. So I understand why people resort to this behavior, even though I would never want to work with someone who would actually do that. Fuck those people.
> Nice to meet you. I am looking for a US person who do business with me. You can earn money with a few cooperation. Do you know Upwork or Toptal site?
They also had the text of the message in a GitHub repo. I tried reporting them to GitHub, Upwork, and Toptal, but I don't think they knew what to do with it? I assumed my scammer was looking to evade banking rules or sanctions, but it could be for either fake employment or actual work with a US-based persona like in this case.