Smuggling Guide

Checked: August 30, 2026

Goods, values and detection

Black market goods each carry a sale value and a detection percentage, shown on the buy screen. Only the items a source showed on screen are listed; the full catalogue is longer and we will not invent numbers for it. Sources: rinegineshine, 'Get Rich Fast As A Civilian', Aug 2026; Kam Gaming, Aug 2026.

How detection actually works

• Detection percentage is the chance the scanner flags that item at secondary inspection, so a bag of low-detection goods clears more often than one high-value piece.
• Getting flagged makes you wanted; the officer can then arrest you and you lose the cargo.
• Carrying capacity is capped, and there is a badge ('Full Bag') for hitting the maximum load.
• Sold goods pay out at a buyer across the border; laundering a briefcase is a separate, higher-value action.

The arithmetic that follows is the reason experienced runners do not simply buy the most expensive thing on the counter. A bag of 10% items clears far more often than one 35% item, and a run that gets through is worth infinitely more than a run that gets scanned. The credit card at 10% is the lowest-risk item anyone has shown on camera; the fake designer sneakers at $700 and 35% are the clearest example of the trap — cheap, and a third of your runs die with them.

Bags, briefcases and the carry cap

Your character can only carry so much. The game ships a badge called Full Bag for "carry the maximum amount of smuggled goods on your person", so the cap is a real, intentional ceiling rather than an inventory quirk, and duffel bags are what raise it. The question players ask most often here — how to hold more than five items at once — is really a question about bag capacity, and the answer is that it is bounded.

Briefcases are a different object with a different verb. You do not sell a briefcase to a buyer; you launder it. The game has one badge for laundering money from a briefcase at all and a second for laundering $20,000 from a single briefcase, which tells you the ceiling on one case sits comfortably above that. If you are holding a case and looking for the buyer, you are looking for the wrong NPC.

Sea routes

The land checkpoint is not the only way across, and the sea route is not a footnote — it is a separate, tiered mission system that pays better than anything on this page. Runs are taken from a smuggler NPC at the docks, pay about $35,000 each on an 8-minute cooldown, and unlock faster boats at 25 and 100 completed runs. A sea run trades the scanner for a pursuit: nobody checks your bag, but Coast Guard players ram boats until they sink, and crossing gives you an automatic wanted star. Full detail on the boat smuggling page.

The one rule that outranks all of this

If you own money printers, think hard before running contraband at all. Smuggling is what puts an illegal crossing on your record, and that record is exactly what lets police obtain a warrant and empty your apartment. A full 50-printer build earns $163,000 an hour and cannot be touched while your record is clean. Most smuggling runs are worth a small fraction of that, and they are what gets the printers taken.