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It definitely sounds like a 'pig butchering' scam. They find someone lonely, give them a sob story, proclaim a special bond, talk to them for months, then start asking for money or pumping an investment scheme. Most likely, he would never come to your country, but rather will start saying "i need \ to travel there..."
How is it worth it for someone to put in months of time for this small amount of money?
Sometimes they get tens of thousands, like if they convince the person to invest in a fraudulent investment scheme. Also, it's not fulltime work with one person... maybe an hour or a few a day per victim, and they do several at once. Reply to one person, reply to another one while waiting to hear back, reply to another... and sometimes the people doing the 'work' are merely employees working for a wage or percentage! If they're in a country with a different scale of currency like China, Brazil or Moldova, 10,000 USD would go a lot farther than in the US.
Anyway, it's not theoretical. Check out this Wired article for instance, or one on ProPublica. They're basically the same as the "I'm a lonely doctor in the military in Africa" romance scams that have been going around social media for years, somewhat descendants of the famous Nigerian Prince scams.
Thousands in a country where the wage is like 50 bucks per month is a lot.
If it is a scam, they likely have many different people on the hook at any one time, possibly dozens if their systems are sophisticated enough. They could be bringing in quite a hefty sum in total.
In addition to the other resources people have linked if you are interested in learning more about this type of scam take a listen to
Darknet Diaries episode 141: The Pig Butcher, it is very interesting.