Comment by Nextgrid

There are generally 2 angles to it:

* malicious: hostile actors want to gain footholds into companies - North Korea, etc

* benign: people in lower income countries want to do the job and can make good profit even when giving half the salary to you.

For the second option, some are scams and only want to pocket a month or two of salary without delivering before the company fires them. Others actually deliver and can keep the arrangement going long-term.