[sboselli]

Yes, unfortunately, that is indeed illegal.

That's exactly what capital flight is (one of its forms), and what most thrid-world countries try to avoid by these banning practices. They (we) have shitty unstable currencies and broken banking systems that the people have no trust in, so they use their savings to buy USD (hard to do in these countries) or Bitcoin to maintain value. Note that money doesn't even need to leave the country for it to be a form of capital flight; just the fact alone that you're buying foreign currency or Bitcoin in a black market.