I walked into a normal casa de cambio 2 weeks ago and they were giving the blue rate for dollars -4%. Which was still a lot better than WU.
Exchanging at a casa de cambio is not what was being discussed. The question was how to send Zelle (or something other means) to someone here (obviously via a bank that's not here) and get money in hand here in Argentina. Some cuevas will do that, no casa de cambio will that I know of unless they have other locations that are secret. This is not exactly legal, or at best is in the gray area as long as you are paying taxes.
When CFK was president (not avoiding prosecution/prison as the VP), the govt used to raid some cuevas, arrested some of the leaders, in order to keep the price of the blue dollar down, among other things. Some places I've been to have big, thick steel doors with a narrow entry way and escapes out other places in case they were robbed (ostensibly) but I knew personally two guys who used to operate cuevas, who told me they were more worried about getting away if the govt raided them.
Cuevas that I know of that will accept transfers and pay you in cash (dollars or pesos, or even transfers in pesos to local bank accounts in one case) are asking upwards of 10-12% because it is so difficult to do these days, especially since the price of crypto tanked (one of the methods used to transfer value since it doesn't have to go through the central bank) and not as many people are buying crypto as were.
BTW: -4% is good for a casa de cambio (maybe great? Been more than a decade since I visited one). Though, I have someone that delivers to my house for the actual blue rate, if we are talking just changing money. Been at this for 16 years now (well, TBH when Nestor was in office, and then for Macri's term [a total of 6 years since I was here], I was able to use my CC and debit cards here...). One tends to make good contacts over time, if one survives here!
