The offer came via Facebook when 30-year-old Athenkosi Dyonta was working at a café in the city of George, a popular holiday resort in South Africa's Western Cape province.
"There was nothing wrong about my work but I was just looking for better opportunities and a better salary," he says.
Athenkosi used to share his latte art - the patterns and designs that are made with milky coffee - with other passionate baristas from all over the world in an online group.
That's where a woman approached him with an offer of a job in Oman.
It was tempting: as well as a decent salary, he was offered free accommodation, food and transport.
She said his visa would be taken care of - all he would have to do was pay for a plane ticket, a medical check-up and a Covid test.
"I thought when he comes back after a year or so, we'll buy ourselves a house," recalls his girlfriend Pheliswa Feni, 28, with whom he has two children.
"We were living in shacks, so I thought maybe a house... then maybe a car, maybe take our kids to better schools."
So the couple borrowed money for Athenkosi's airfare, and he left for Oman in February.
His first impressions of the country were positive. "It was so beautiful," he told The Comb podcast.
He was driven from the capital, Muscat, to a town called Ibra where he quarantined in a hotel for seven days.
"I thought: 'All my dreams are coming true.'"
On arrival, he had been fitted with a tracking bracelet for the quarantine period.
Once that was over a doctor removed the tracker and he was moved to his new home - an alarming sight.
"It was just a dirty place - a small room, with a mattress and boxes," said Athenkosi, who had to share the space with a man from Nepal.