Trading currency - hypothetical but interesting question...

[jollygreen]

Right, here we go.

I can buy usd1,950 with gbp1,000.

With the usd, I can buy 585m zwd (Zimbabwean dollars) in Zimbabwe.

I found a place in London who will buy zwd at a forex of 7200 to the pound.

Soooo, based on an investment of 1,000gbp, I could get a return of gbp80,000.

Problem is, how do I get that sort of cash out of Zimbabwe?

Currency trading is legal and I'd be happy to pay tax on my 79k gbp profit. How the heck do i do it?!!

Having read the customs and excise website, there is no limit on the hard cash which can be brought into the UK although you must have "a good reason" to have the money on you. Is trading currency a good reason?

[dzug]

To get it out of Zimbabwe you bribe a customs officer with half of it and hope that he doesn't seize the rest.... The amount of local currency you can legally take out of the country is trivial.

And also hope that between getting it in Zimbabwe and off loading it in London it hasn't devalued 10 trillion percent.

[jollygreen]

lol, yeah inflation is 15000%!!!!!

seriously, there must be a way to move money... wonder what banks in harare there are...?

[WoWo]

Where exactly are you going to be getting the ZWD from? they might have a street value of what you say but you won't be able to do that legally and certainly not safely.

The reason you might be able to buy so many ZWD is as mentioned because of the instabillity of the currency, swapping ZWD in to USD means the person now holding the USD is not subject to the currency fluctuation.

What I'm getting at is that they might have a street value of 585 but you won't get that via any channel which won't murder you druing the transaction.

[jollygreen]

I wasn't planning on going myself... I have a number oif Nigerian work colleagues who I would trust... USD are easy to change to zwd in the towns at the rates I mention. That's not the problem.