How to transfer money from property sale out of Crimea to Ukraine or USA

[calmissile]

Selling an apartment in Yalta has been a multi-year fiasco.  What methods are available to get the money from a property sale into either a Ukraine bank or US bank, or other western bank?

[krimster2]

I used to do this as a business in Crimea up until 2007...
my method was to transport the cash in person
it means you stay on trains where your luggage is not x-rayed
and that's all I have to say about that...

[ML]

Doug, my wife regularly brings $9,900 in cash from Ukraine to USA.

But that's from Kyiv, not Crimea.

[krimster2]

ukraine is a completely different story
you should just be able to wire the money out now...

but Crimea, there's no way, except to transfer to Russian bank
and withdraw somewhere in Russia
and take a train from Russia to say Finland or Poland and then fly to the USA
and declare your money at customs have a copy of the property sale document and say this was your primary residence!
I have actually done this MANY times this way...
no one ever thought the nice couple with their adorable little girls
were big time currency smugglers
but they were the perfect cover
everyone has to start out small
and work their way up

so in essence,
withdraw full amount in cash in USD at bank in Russia (if bank asks why, say you want to buy another house!)
take train ASAP to nearby foreign country
fill in the treasury form on-line for bringing in more than $10,000
have copies of your property sale documents
then fly to the USA
fly with cash in carry-on luggage but concealed
present customs form when you arrive at customs
you will proceed to backroom, they will count, you will sign a few forms
and then off you go to the nearest bank
got pretty routine...

[calmissile]

Thanks for the responses.  Krimster, I will PM you for some clarification and detailsl.

[tfcrew]

From Odessa...we got the funds put into [basically] a debit card. It went through Wells Fargo.
They suck. Wells Fargo deserves all the hell they will ever encounter. But that's another issue.
The internal revenue will want their cut as they consider real estate proceeds income. My suggestion [after you get everything into your account] is to lie. You lost money on the sale! Don't forget to deduct travel expenses...realtor costs and whatever else your accountant can think of. We didn't lie enough. But it's all done now...was 6 years ago and with interest on the savings account it worked out.