Smuggling is one of the most lucrative activities for the smart player. The principle is simple: buy liquor or drugs cheaply in one city and sell them at a profit in another. Prices differ per city, so market knowledge and good timing are everything. Smuggling is about traveling and market insight rather than brute force.
How it works
- Buying — buy stock (different types of liquor or drugs) in the city you're standing in.
- Traveling — move to a city where your goods sell for more. See Traveling & the cities.
- Selling — cash in your stock at the local price. The difference between buying and selling price is your profit.
Hold
You can't carry unlimited amounts. You have one hold for drugs and one for liquor, and all products of that type share the space. Every product has its own maximum: buy a product up to half of its maximum and half of your hold is full. So you choose whether to carry one product up to its maximum or a mix. The higher your rank, the more you can carry. On the buy screen, Storage shows how full your hold is. The Fill hold button fills the rest with one product.
Market saturation
Each day the market takes only a limited number of sales of the same type (drugs or liquor) at full price. If you sell more often, every extra sale that day pays less. On a new day the price is back to full. Price today on the sell screen shows where the market stands. To earn a lot, spread your sales over drugs and liquor and over several days.
Risk and heat
- Selling risk — selling everything at once is faster but riskier (higher arrest chance). Sell in smaller batches, and you lower the chance of getting caught.
- City heat — every purchase raises the "heat" in that city, making future purchases riskier. Heat drops back down on its own.
- Cooldown — after selling, a cooldown applies before you can sell that type again.
With the honor points boost Discretion you temporarily bypass the rise in city heat — handy when you want to buy a lot in a row.