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My dad does business with some Russians who completely refuse to use banks of any kind. These are not small time, tinfoil hat redneck-equivalents, but real businessmen who do hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of business at a time, and who are not doing anything illegal that needs hiding.
He finally got up the nerve to ask them once, and they said that during a previous financial crisis in Russia (don't know how long ago this is supposed to have happened, but in this 60-ish guy's lifetime,) the government confiscated all the money in banks. Not like how the American IRS or FBI will occasionally pick one person to screw over and act like their money looks like terrorist transactions when they have no proof--like they took 100% of all the money in all the banks, they just took it and said everyone starts over at zero.
It's the reason this guy emigrated to the US, because if they had to start over they might as well completely start over, but he says he will never use a bank again, in any country.
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