I like playing police factions, partly because of TLAGSNET and used to play KSP until unfortunately I had some interactions that left me scarred.
TLAGSNET is great, I can be sipping my coffee while staying still, scanning ships until there's something of interest. And I think it is being used to its fullest potential. Can't think of a direct analogy in North America, if dispatch tells you there's a stolen jewelry in a vehicle, you still have to pull it over to search it, can't just rely on dispatch.
It's actually quite fun when you think the smuggler was going your way, then ended up going down another trade lane and you have to chase him down.
F1 is a problem everywhere. Even more so for smugglers because the demand isn't "give me 4 and you can be on your way", it's "drop all the contraband or I'll make it float out of your hull"
Contraband should be given higher profit rates though, I'd rather run ore instead of illegal stuff because ore has better return. Although it's actually super easy to smuggle Nox from Provence to Shikoku because it's mostly Taus and can avoid all TLAGSNET except for Kyushu jump gate.