CUSTOMS

Only contraband gets you stopped. Goods marked with a star on the board are contraband; everything else is legit and is never searched, whatever else is in the bag. The travel screen shows how strict the next airport is before you fly, and the customs screen shows the search chance before you choose. Hidden, it would be a coin flip. Shown, it is a bet.

On arrival with contraband in the bag, the game rolls against the stop chance. Miss, and you walk into the market with a line of flavor. Hit, and you are at the desk.

The total is capped at 90%. It counts contraband types, not units. Ten rep sneakers and thirty add the same 13 points. Past 30 units of one thing, add 5 more.

Every officer has a specialty that raises the stop chance, but the travel screen shows only the tell (DELGADO · IN A HURRY, SATO · PRECISE), never the good. You learn specialties the hard way, from the crew, or from the character pages here.

The officer waves you out of the line, says a line, and the screen lists what is in your bag with a risk rating on every row: NONE for legit goods, LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH for contraband. Then YOUR CALL · PICK ONE.

Declare

Duty is 25% of the market value of all the contraband in the bag. Pay it and keep everything. There is no search. If a buy would leave you with less cash than the duty on everything contraband in the bag, the app says so before you buy: how much you would have left, what the duty and a bribe would cost, and that customs could take it all. Buy anyway, or not yet.

Nothing to declare

The search chance is the stop chance plus 30 points, capped at 90%. Being stopped used up the easy roll. A medium-risk bag at a normal airport reads about 59% once you are at the desk. Pass, and you walk with everything. Fail, and the bag is opened.

What a failed search costs

All contraband is seized. A fine of 15% of cash on hand is taken; money in the bank is untouched. And you are flagged for the rest of the run, which adds 15 points to every stop chance from here on.

The bribe

When the bag is opened, the officer waits. If you can pay it, a bribe is on the table.

The bribe is 30% of the contraband's value, never less than $300, and only offered if you can cover it. The officer takes it 75% of the time at a lax airport, 55% at a normal one, and 35% at a strict one, and 15 points less than that during a crackdown. The odds are on the button. Pay it and he takes it: you keep everything, no fine, no flag. Pay it and he refuses: he keeps the cash and seizes the goods, fine and flag as usual. If you cannot cover the bribe, the seizure happens straight away.

The stamp

Every stop ends with one stamp and one button. CLEARED, in white, means you walked or he took the cash. DECLARED, in amber, means you paid the duty. SEIZED, in red, means the bag was opened. Under every stamp, THE DAMAGE lists what it cost: nothing, the duty, the bribe, or what was taken, the fine, and the flag. Then INTO THE CITY.

A crackdown is an event. The board reads CUSTOMS CRACKDOWN AT {CITY}. EXTRA SCREENING ALL WEEK, and for 3 days that city's stop chance is 20 points higher and bribes are 15 points less likely. Tariq usually hears about them. Usually.

CRACKDOWN YEAR is a run modifier, not an event. For the whole run, every city is one strictness tier higher: lax airports behave like normal ones, normal like strict.

CUSTOMS ARE WAVING EVERYONE THROUGH TODAY. Stop chance 0% at that arrival, whatever is in the bag and whoever the officer is. It overrides every other factor, including the flag. Tom's cousin sometimes knows about these in advance. Tom is right 60% of the time.

Lucy is a beagle. She is Sydney's sniffer dog and sits down next to bags with gunpowder in them. If she sits down next to yours and there are fireworks in it, there is no bluff and no declaring: the stop is forced and the search is certain. The bribe step still applies, if you can cover it, at Sydney's strict odds. Winston Macallister's tell on the travel screen is MACALLISTER · AND LUCY, and his specialty is fireworks, which add 20 points on their own. Fireworks are not allowed in a suitcase anywhere, and Sydney bans them outright. Do not bring anything that goes bang.

Once a run, between day 5 and day 15, a stranger at a departure gate offers you money to carry a sealed case to a named city by a named day. No questions. The fee is 12% of your current net worth, never less than $3,000, paid on delivery. The case takes 30 bag spaces while you carry it. The destination is always two flight-days away or more, and the deadline is the shortest route plus 3 days.

At the desk, the case is invisible. Sealed, it never triggers a search and never counts toward the stop chance. If the bag is too full, the card says how many spaces you have and how many you need, and SELL SOMETHING FIRST · THE STRANGER WAITS puts him on hold while you sell (only sell) to make room. Fly without answering and the offer is gone.

Deliver it by the deadline and the case leaves your bag and the fee lands in cash. Miss the deadline and there is no fee, the case stays in your bag until you dump it, and you are flagged for the rest of the run.

Or open it. Half the time it holds a contraband good worth 1.5 to 2 times the fee, which is now yours to sell and, from that moment, counts as contraband at every desk. The other half it holds paperwork, worth nothing, and you are flagged. Either way an unknown number texts "We had a deal", and there are no more offers this run.