Money Problems: Buenos Aires

Given that we were engaged in a feverish debauch my friend and I did a reasonable job of seeing Buenos Aires. We checked out most of the notable districts, attended some cultural events, and even made an expedition to the childhood home of famed Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, which we thought was a museum but turned out to be a regular home only featuring a commemorative plaque on the outside wall.

But we also spent a hell of alot of time drinking and recovering from that drinking, and that was time spent not seeing the city. As both a literary mecca, full of bookstores, and the most architecturally distinct city in South America Buenos Aires held a special allure for me, and I wasn't done with the place. So when Kyle left I moved to a quiet hostel away from the city center and set out to have another look. I toured the renown Recoleta cemetery, saw a tango show, had lunch with a Wall Street Journal correspondent. With just a day left in my stay it looked like I was going to have my cake in Buenos Aires and eat it too: an epic party and a quality tour. Then I got involved in something.

Though not known as a party hostel, the place I'd moved to in the tony Palermo neighborhood still offered the obligatory pub crawl a few times a week. I was on one of these, drinking in some bar when I started talking to a girl from Barcelona who lived in BA. Or rather, in hindsight, she started talking to me. She brought up some kind of currency exchange transaction she wanted me to do. Something about changing pesos into dollars and then back into pesos. Though I was half-drunk it still sounded fishy but she assured me it was perfectly safe, she did it all the time, etc. She said she'd pay me but what I wanted was the story.

"Ok, I'll do it," I said to her.
"Good! Tomorrow you call me and we go to the centro and do it."
"It's a plan. Just out of curiosity, how much money do you want me to change?"
"I don't know, like five thousand dollars?"

About three months before my arrival the government in Argentina forbid its citizens from purchasing US dollars. The dollar has long acted as a second currency in Argentina, due to historic instability in the value of the peso caused by government mismanagement. Thus people here covet the dollar, which they trust will hold its value. The new restriction, imposed in an effort to control the exchange rate, has only allowed the black market for dollars to further flourish. The official rate of exchange is something like 4.25 pesos for one dollar. On the street you can get over 6.

Foreigners, however, are not fully subject to the prohibition. Foreign tourists when arriving in Argentina can exchange their dollars for pesos at an official change-house. They then have the right to reverse that transaction and get their dollars back. That is, they have a way to obtain dollars that regular Argentines do not. In this loophole lie the scheme I would be accessory to. I would change pesos into dollars at the official rate and then give the dollars to the girl, who would change them back into pesos at the more favorable black market rate. They would make around 50% on their money.

I got in touch with the girl and gave her my name, passport number and date of entry into Argentina. We met up at my hostel and took the metro to the city center where the exchange houses are all located. We ducked into an alley and she produced a forged receipt stating I had received 20,000 pesos in exchange for dollars at a certain house. Then she handed me three wads of cash bound by rubber-bands that totaled that amount.

I walked into the office which looked like a small bank, with tellers at their windows. At first the woman I dealt with refused my document because it was dated differently than my entry into Argentina. Finally I got across to her that I had arrived one day but not changed money until three days later. She started the process. The period of time she had both my passport and the forged receipt behind the counter was a long five minutes. If she called me out then I was in serious trouble. I did my best fake space-out, trying to make it all look boring and routine and most importantly legitimate. On the inside I was sweating. At last she produced receipts for me to sign and when that was done she gave me my passport back and a ticket. I took the ticket to the next counter and was given fifty hundred-dollar bills and change. I counted the money and with it all there I walked out of the store.

I caught sight of my handler. She was watching me from the far street-corner. She hadn't taken her eyes off me for a moment. What if I had just stolen the money? Dived into a cab or run off. I thought about it. I crossed the street and walked up to her.

"Todo bien," I said and smiled a big smile I'd been hiding behind a stern face to make her nervous, for fun. She smiled back nervously and led me down the street. After we'd walked a little ways we stopped and I gave her the cash. She made a quick count and then peeled off one of the hundreds and handed it to me. My fee.

We went for a beer and while sitting there I asked her, "So you just hang around bars and look for foreigners like me to do this with?"
"Beats working in a restaurant," she said.

That afternoon I was on a bus west to Mendoza, the Andes, and Chile beyond.