> If you had $150 million in rubles, you could transfer it for only a nominal fee ($20 for my bank, although you can get a lot cheaper if you regularly did transfers like that) to any account in the world that could hold rubles.
I have no counterproof, but I find this hard to believe.
If you had $150 million in rubles, you'd almost certainly have an account with the private banking side of whichever bank you use. Private accounts generally come with perks like free wire transfers.
Source: Someone I trust who works in Private Client Services at JP Morgan (not sure if other banks offer free wires, but I'd be surprised if they don't).
Telegraphic Transfer (TT) Request $20.00 per transaction or item
Pretty sure that would be fine up to ~$1 million. Anecdotally I know TT happen for sums in the range of $10-$100 million (there was a case where ~$150 million was stolen by a rogue TT in Australia to overseas bank accounts).
I have no counterproof, but I find this hard to believe.