That's not 'dangerous and unethical' by the normal standards of funding application. Sure, it's not a huge amount of money. But almost every fund has some paperwork requirements and most of them are a lot more onerous than this one.

Funds don't operate outside the legal framework, they are well within it and are expected to show their paperwork at the drop of a hat to any auditor that comes knocking. If they just wired sums that are at or near the reporting requirement to any callers they'd be in pretty hot water.

I've had an AML check for the grand sum of 900 euros once.