Amount of Money Needed

In the film, Galip's friends think they need what seems a huge sum of money in order to send him to Cuba. It is something like $45,000, and they are, reasonably, unable to get that kind of money. My question is, is that part of the humour of the film? I took it as such because I can't see why anyone would need nearly that much to fly to Cuba, so I figure that it is just another fuuny and ironic part to the film. The characters go to such lengths to get the money, eventually robbing the bank, when it seemed to me that they probably needed only a fraction of it. They raise the possibility of the figure being wrong when they first calculate it and it seems to me that they did simply mess up and didn't realize it. Does anyone have any thoughts? It won't really change my opinion of the film since it is rather minor, but I would like to get some insight.