I'm not sure this one is so far fetched, even though I believe something nefarious went on with this transaction as a whole. I recently learned from an executive at Citibank that each country has a designated central bank that can wire to the US (I'm not sure of the other way around). As it was explained to me, many countries have gotten stricter about wiring internationally because they don't want money leaving their country and spent/invested overseas, as an example, as well as it making the money more difficult to track without the central banking system. I don't know about Greece (I was having issues with China wiring to the US) though the way it was explained to me made sense and was worldwide (and I know I'm not doing it justice). MOO