Question about money transfer

[brucen36]

Ok so here's the deal.  For those of you who read my other thread, I want to invite a girl here on a student visa.  To get such a visa she needs to prove she has sufficient bank funds, which I want to transfer to her.  No I'm not being scammed, so please no comments on that. 

So what I want to know is the best solution for getting the money to her.  I have so far considered the following options:
1) I can't directly wire the money to a bank in Belarus because apparently the government there will see this as income and tax her something like 10%.  So instead, send money by western union (costs about $100), she gets cash directly and deposits into a bank in Belarus (or Russia). 

2) Wire the money directly to a bank account in Russia (she will open one there soon), this will cost about $40 from my bank.  Problem here is she doesn't know if Russia might tax her on it or if they will let Belarus know about the transfer and then they will tax her on it.  Anyone know about this?

3) She opens an online account with a site called ikobo, which is used to transfer money for a small fee.  In this case she registers for such an account in Canada at my home address (she can't do it with Belarus because ikobo is an american company and america has sanctions against Belarus).  They send me a card in her name which I then send to her by mail, and she can use this card to withdraw money from any ATM there and deposit it into a bank account (preferably a russian one I guess).  I worry about this option for proof to the canadian embassy when getting the student visa, because the account would be registered in Canada - not sure if that would be a problem.  And of course there is a little white lie here telling ikobo that she resides in Canada at my address.

Then of course there is the matter of bringing the money back with her.  I'd say it's probably not the best thing to bring it on her person and rather just to wire it back.  This again is a good reason to choose a russian bank since it is more mainstream and who knows what Belarus would charge for things like this.

So, yeah I know it's a bit confusing, but I'm wondering has anyone else transferred money there and what's the best way to do it so it works well for proving to the embassy that she will have the funds to study here.  I want to essentially leave myself out of the equation as much as possible, i.e. so no one will think she has a guy here helping her.

Thanks for any advice/comments,

B

[ScottinCrimea]

I don't know about Belarus, but I wired large amounts to my wife's account in Ukraine several times with no problems.  The banks there charge a certain percent to withdraw the funds -something like 1%.

Recently I sent my MIL several thousand using Moneygram (which is much cheaper than WU) and there was no problem with that.  She simply went to the bank and got the money.  No fees on her end.  I believe you can send up to $10,000, but anything over a certain amount requires some type of reporting form (on this side, not that side).  No big deal.

As far as bringing the money back with her, she would need to declare it so there might be some issues (again, not familiar with Belarus).  One option is to put it in a bank where she can use her ATM card to withdraw funds in the US.

[Chicagoguy]

CitiBank has a big presence in Russia and if they are in Canada also you might want to check with them.

[kievstar]

Send her a bank card for your account.  She can withdraw money from bankand put in her own bank account.  Or create a phony bank statement. 

[brucen36]

Send her a bank card for your account.  She can withdraw money from bankand put in her own bank account.  Or create a phony bank statement. 

Send her a duplicate bank card in the mail?  Never thought of that.  So my bank will give me a second bank card I assume?  Problem is there's probably a limit to how much can be taken out at a time.  She probably is going to need up to $10K, which could take a while to do, but it's doable I suppose.  It won't be a problem that there are withdrawls going on over there and here too? 

[GoodOlBoy]

Send her a duplicate bank card in the mail?  Never thought of that.  So my bank will give me a second bank card I assume?  Problem is there's probably a limit to how much can be taken out at a time.  She probably is going to need up to $10K, which could take a while to do, but it's doable I suppose.  It won't be a problem that there are withdrawls going on over there and here too? 

Better check with your Bank about this one.

My Credit Union changed their banking rules and now my cards are no good in Russia. I didn't find out until I went back to Russia a couple of years ago with my wife to visit her family.

I went to use my Visa Debit card at SVO and no money. I contacted my Credit Union and they told me that they do no more business in Russia.

There was no problems using my card's 2 years before this last visit.



GOB

[Simoni]

Forget a credit union card.

Go with a major international bank.

My Bank of America card is still in Ukraine, and used by MOL when we want to get her some money.  Works fine.