R U T C O R

Detection of contraband depends on countermeasures, some of which involve examining cargo containers and/or their associated documents. Documents screening is the least expensive physical methods, such as gamma ray detection are more expensive, and definitive manual unpacking is most expensive. We cannot apply the full array of methods to all incoming cargoes, for budgetary reasons. We study the problem using principles of Game Theory, (and find that for optimal detection the available budget is allocated between screening and definitive unpacking using a mixture of strategies,) which maximizes detection rate and, further, serves to deceive opponents as to specific tests to which contraband will be subjected. This yields increases of as much as 100% in detection, with essentially no increase in inspection cost. Acknowledgements: The support of the Office of Naval Research, Contract Number N0014-071-0299, of the NSF, under Contract Number 05-18543, The National Science Foundation and DHS under award CBET-0735910 and DHS Contract Number N000-14-07-1-0150 under ONR are all most gratefully acknowledged. Thanks to Fred Roberts, Alex Kogan, and Sheldon Jacobsohn for stimulating conversations.