Oh, a visa scam. Title is misleading.

A tale old as time.

My old home region in Sweden fell victim to a similar scam about 20 years ago. (It was also originated from China.)

Use browser based translation tools on https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/smaland/fanerdun-1.

Lots of promised investments, naive local politicians (the same guy is still in power, gah), lack of critical thinking.

The end result was just a lot of Swedish/EU visas. They had been advertised for $20-30k in China.