This article examines how contraband was perceived and punished in Colombia between 1821 and 1886. To do so, it first establishes how authorities viewed contraband and then reviews how violators were sanctioned, comparing these punishments with the evolution of the legal system over the same period. Finally, the article addresses the actually-applied punishments in order to evaluate whether the letter of the law was followed. By discerning how authorities viewed this crime, the coherence between these views and its penalization, the relationship between this sanction and other existing punishments and their application, the article attempts to determine how contraband was perceived.