Money transfers for local guides

I have been doing some research for many months and have been working
through posts on the Thorn Tree travel forum.
We are looking to go to Rwanda and I have been
emailing Freddy Budaramani from Gorilla Select
www.gorillaselect.com We have negotiated an
itinerary and price and it is time to send some money
for the permits and 50% of the tour cost. I am happy
to do this but am worried about the secutity of
sending over money and if the money is actually going
to my tour and I am not the victim of a scam. I
dislike being untrusting but I have recently had
several hundred dollars go missing during a bank
transfer to the Bank of Tanzania in Arusha. There
seems to be quite a bit of discussion about these
types of concerns on the forum and I can see that
there will be some risk attached to these
transactions but could use some advise on the best
course of action. I did read
somewhere that the transfer can be done through money
exchanges rather than the banks which can take
several weeks.
thanks for the help

If the guy/company is legit and you use Swift codes, then I would just wire it.

Are you sure that the several hundred dollars went "missing" on the Bank of Tanzania transfer? There are almost always fees involved on both ends, and the exchange rate that the bank uses is usually much less than if you exchanged cash at a forex bureau in-country. I am not saying that this is fair, but "missing" might be the wrong word. If I am wrong about this, then please clarify.

I have never used "money exchanges" but it sounds a whole lot more dodgy to me!

Peace,

BB

Thanks but what is a swift code?

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Communcation....
Its a code used to identify a particular branch of a bank.