Making Those Zeroes The Illegal Way.
The game doesn’t do a great job of explaining smuggling and stolen goods in detail. We will do our best to improve upon what information is available.
Contraband is stolen goods and obtaining it is quite straightforward. Steal stuff that doesn’t belong to you.
When lock picking or browsing containers you will see a red icon on the locked door or container or on the goods you’re viewing. That red icon means it’s pretty much an illegal activity you’re about to commit.
Taking those goods means you have contraband on your ship now. If someone witnessed the act you will get notoriety and the guards will come looking for you.
Fighting pirates and destroying their ships allows you to loot their cargo holds. Most of the time the cargo holds will have contraband items in them. This is another method of obtaining them.
With contraband in your possession, you have two choices: abandon them or sell them.
The best place to sell contraband to is the merchants on the Key, however, that requires you to join the Crimson Pirates.
An alternative method of selling contraband is to sell it to any Trade Authority merchants. They will also buy it from you.
Going with the Trade Authority method means you need to get that contraband planetside to sell it.
That’s where the issue comes in. Before being allowed to land in a city your ship gets scanned and if contraband is found you will have some issues on your hands.
Remember to transfer your contraband to your cargo hold and not keep it on your person as it won’t get concealed otherwise.
The only method to get contraband safely past authorities is by making use of a shielded cargo module and or a scanner jammer. These will immensely improve your chances of successfully smuggling contraband past authorities.