HN Explorer

Risks of paying a Freelancer in the Iraq / Kurdistan Region

3 points by hackaflocka ↗ HN
Via a website, I've found a programmer living in Iraq / Kurdistan. He's very good (provably so) and I need him to implement a couple of features in one of my websites.

My fear / concern is that if and when I pay this person for the work (perhaps via PayPal or BitCoin), I'll trigger some flag in some database somewhere, and if any of that money ever ends up in the hands of some enemies of the U.S., then I'll be in big trouble (suspected of providing material support to enemies or worse).

The situation is further complicated by the fact that I'm a permanent resident of the U.S. and intend to apply for citizenship next year.

Got any advice? I'll be monitoring this thread and responding to your need for clarifications.

2 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 14.7 ms ] thread
JayNeely
I really doubt this would ever be an issue. Would you have any reason to believe this programmer is directly associated with enemies of the US? If not, a totally indirect chain of payments doesn't put you on the hook for anything; just think about all the hops the money in your PayPal account went through to get there. And also that money (with Bitcoin being a sort-of exception) is a fluid amalgamation that gets split up and reconstituted from different pieces all the time.

Absolute worst case (supremely unlikely) scenario, some chain of transactions does cause a flag to be raised -- you wouldn't be silently condemned. It would be investigated; that's why they'd be flagging transactions in the first place. And they'd see from the context (or if it ever came to someone actually calling and asking) that it's a legitimate payment for services rendered. Just like millions of other payments to out-of-country developers.