What's the deal with those dog sand sculptures on the streets everywhere? Scam or real?

This has just arrived in my town in France From afar, I see a weird dog on a carpet and a man fiddling around it. I realise when I get closer that he's busy realising a sand sculpture. I compliment him and after trying a few questions, I realise the man is east European. Coincidally, an anothe man comes close also complimenting him and searching his pocket to give him some change. I did not have any money on me and since he was not able to communicate, so I just continued. I did not think about it that much but I honestly thought this was genuine. 5 minutes later, arriving where I wanted to go but finding the store closed, I see another man, east European type, also "finishing" a sand sculpture. Knowing all about the "almost finished"beautiful unique china made paint scams in european cities, my brain clicked and I knew right there that this was the new form. What is the chance that two eastern european "sand artists" arrive on the same day in my small town. I suspect the fake tourist to be part of the scam too. I -could not stay long enough to uncover the Barnum but I'll sure try to put myself to it if I see that they stay around. But something tells me that they won't. They'll just move to another city in a day or two. When you search google: \- You can't find a genuine video where the sculture is started from scratch. \- They're all, so they say, men and women, from eastern Europe (Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, ...) \- I can't find the "initial" mold method but it is done so that when destroyed, you're only left with sand. \- So many artists but strangely, the dogs more or less look the same. How is this possible. \- The artist is more preoccupied to let you know that he need money to eat than to "work" on his actual "creation" \- Many newspaper, all consider that this is true. Many of the relate a story where a passerby came at the end to destroy the sculpture. An accomplice (Drunk homeless type, ...) doing a stunt to encourage people to give more money to the artist? I would easily believe something like that. I'll sure keep an eye in the coming days to see how many of the are in town but I would not spend a penny, unless you want to encourage clever and creative criminal endeavours which is something I could understand ;-)