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 totall

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.