I think it’s the lack of respect that many people have for the law that leads to things like this. The bachurim who were in prison in Japan were told that they were smuggling seforim. Similar things happened to many other people in many other less high profile cases (“I just need you to take these diamonds hidden in the lining to my parents”). People simply have a disregard for governments and don’t think about the consequences when breaking the law. We need to instill in ourselves that we are still in galus and we can’t just flaunt around pretending that goyim are only here to be tricked.
One thing I would mention to people when the Japan thing was ongoing was this. When the kids were sent to prison, the drug dealer was put into cheirim by his community and vilified as a rasha. Had the kids not been caught, and the dealer freely admitted what he had been doing, would people have been upset at him? What if he was honest, and really just trying to smuggle diamonds or seforim, would he still be in cheirim?