Or it may be a sure way to lose your money

What stops you from buying bitcoins, say, at Bitfinex and sending them to Zimbabwe? I guess many people would be happy to find out if you can really make use of this mind-boggling price spread between local exchanges (I don't know how many exchanges are in Zimbabwe) and the rest of the world. Anyway, some people have obviously already tried, and since we don't see prices going to their average value across major exchange (the same Bitfinex), things aren't as easy as they seem to be