[ur-whale]

> basic wire transfers are instant and cheap

This is woefully incorrect. Wire transfers are neither instant nor cheap, depending on the source and destination country.

If you wire from US to US, or EU to EU, they yeah, maybe.

The moment you move large sums across borders, especially to /from countries that aren't in the US's "good guys" list (as dumb and childish as that sounds, this is typical language in USistan for politicians and media), things gets very tricky.

[heavyset_go]

It costs a few dollars to transfer money via Western Union, and the receiver can pick up the money almost instantly.