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.