I spent some time creating this mind map to sum up everything you'd want to know about the scam messages, as well as the common theories. I will try to keep it updated. If you have anything to add to this or critique, please let me know.
Might take a while to load, it's a very high res image. Here's a link alternative: https://files.catbox.moe/csls12.jpg
This should be obvious, but due to the recent developments I want to have this here as a warning:
Don't send the scammer any money, even as a joke.
The picture doesn't seem to be AI, and it's unlikely to be the person from the picture. I highly doubt someone would use an innocent person's face for spam across the fediverse for the sake of improving security.
Especially because the security against spam was always going to be put to the test no matter what.