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This article is about Contraband. For a list of items marked as Contraband, see Category:Contraband. |
Contraband items are items the Guards do not allow you to have. Their name in game is red to help identify them.
These items will trigger contraband detectors/Metal Detector, causing your Guard Heat to immediately jump to 99%.(30% on mobile) Contraband detectors look like gates with a green light above them, the lights turn red if you walk through it with a contraband item. Note that guards do not notice if you have contraband in your inventory or on your person (with the exception of the Guard Outfit, which, if worn, will make your guard heat rise up quite quickly in sight of the guards). But if you keep your contraband items in a desk and your name is called at a rollcall for a cell shakedown, you must remove ALL contraband from your desk within the next hour, otherwise they will find it, confiscate it, and put you in solitary. As such, it is a bad idea to keep more than six contraband items in your desk. If you can't find another place to hide excess contraband (Such as utility tunnels, vents or digging tunnels), use toilets to hide it, even if it's someone else's toilet. Then re-collect it an hour or so after rollcall. By then, they would have definitely searched your desk (Though if it's evening rollcall, you'll simply have to wait until tomorrow to retrieve everything). Items inside toilets will only disappear if the game is reloaded, so refrain from hiding important contraband in there if possible, such as cutters, pickaxes, shovels, items needed for escaping, and so on.
There are multiple ways to keep your contraband hidden. The most common mistake is to keep it in your desk. If you keep it in your desk, you run the risk of losing ALL contraband on the map, and you will be put in solitary confinement. What should be done, rather, is to either hide it in vents (when there are vents, of course), hide it in tunnels (hide your Dirt very carefully, or give it to a teammate/flush it through a toilet.), or hide it in a hollow wall (cover the hole in the wall with a Poster). Be careful that if you are put in solitary for ANY reason, ALL hidden contraband will disappear, all holes will be covered, all vents fixed, all walls repaired.
Contraband can be smuggled safely through metal detectors by keeping a Contraband Pouch or a Durable Contraband Pouch in the player's inventory.
Contraband outfits, such as the 
Guard Outfit can be safely smuggled through metal detectors by temporarily equipping it before walking through them. This strategy also works for contraband weapons (not for The Escapists 2, as the weapon you use has to be in your inventory, not special weapon slot).