[foota]

If you assume that there's an even chance of getting caught (e.g., if searches are random based on the traveler) then fewer larger trips reduces the number of times your agent is caught.

Given that it seems reasonable to assume risk is correlated to the number of people caught rather than the amount of money caught (which is the same either way) it seems like fewer largers trips could be rational.

I guess the more trips you make the more people you have to involve as well. If you have 1 person make 10 trips a year that's a lot easier to hide than 10 people making 10 trips a year etc.,

[smogcutter]

> If you assume that there's an even chance of getting caught (e.g., if searches are random based on the traveler) then fewer larger trips reduces the number of times your agent is caught.

What? No it doesn’t. It just increases variance.

[foota]

Yes it does.

Let's say you have 100 trips to send money vs 1 trip. If there's a 10% chance to be caught on each trip, then with 100 trips 10 people are caught on average, whereas with 1 trip a tenth of a person is caught on average (more realistically, I'd look at the probably that more than N people are caught using a binomial, but I don't thinks it's important).

Although that said, maybe it's worth it. With a 1% chance to be caught and 100 trips, there's a 63% chance at least one person is caught, and a 26% chance that more than 1 person is caught. With one person, there's a 1% chance they're caught.

The average money caught is the same though (and as you note the variance in money caught is higher, which is undesirable).

But money caught doesn't land you in jail. You could imagine that with multiple people caught it's easier to track back who they met with. With 1 person caught, there's no other cases to cross reference against.

Probably you would want to balance these factors out.

[abhinavstarts]

Amazing analysis.