I built this device, and can answer any questions you might have about radio-imaging.

I'm afraid I'm totally new to this and don't even know what I don't know yet, I'm coming into this from the taxation angle and illicit trade is a major concern across Africa but also very hard to identify given some of the issues I mentioned above (plus porous borders, corruption, etc.). I guess my general question is how much does one of these cost to build and maintain? If you could point me to any reading for a total beginner to get up to speed on the capabilities of the technology I'd really appreciate that too.

So it really depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for say, stowaways in a truck, backscatter x-ray is sufficient to help you find them. But if you are looking for smuggled goods you might need some sort of tranmissive x-ray system the truck passes through like a flatbed scanner of sorts.

Alibaba? They have a bunch of X-ray machines, the smallest one:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-Arrival-Portable-...

What is your situation that you want to identify smugglers but aren't part of a government organization that can already source xray machines?

While this might be the most powerful handheld one(don't know, didn't verify the authors claims), there certainly are already portable commercial scanners available.

And one final thought - anywhere that has 1) smuggling problems, and 2) very intermittent power will also almost certainly have high levels of corruption. Getting scanners into the hands of backwater security personnel means nothing if they only need a few packs of the smuggled cigarettes to not even turn them on.

I love when people simultaneity have ignorant bias and reveal their biases come from complete fiction.

1 not at all people that live in poor countries (have smuggling and intermittent power) are amoral - some of them actually believe in the project of nation building! therefore these cheap handheld detection devices would in fact not "mean nothing".

2 no one accepts cigarettes (or blue jeans or sony walkmen or whatever else your imagine) as payment anywhere outside of out movies. they take local currency or dollar or euro. many smugglers are just as poor as the border patrol they hope to evade so in fact they would be "turned in" for lack of bribe money if caught by one of these devices.

1) I never argued bribery was amoral - that is your stance apparently, not mine.

2) I've literally bribed people with cigarettes(and dollars, and booze, and clothing). So your categorical statement is incorrect. I was mostly just going along with the analogy though.

Or perhaps you are part of a government with significant budgetary limitations.

Not everyone is in the West.

Exactly this, I have a grant that is quite open ended and am interested in any and all interventions that can do good, even those as unconventional as buying police forces portable xrays to detect illicit goods

I disagree with your last two statements for the reasons talked about below, not everywhere with smuggling problems means that scanners will have no use, some police officers want to do their jobs.

As to my situation, many countries have underfunded enforcement agencies, I'm mainly looking into tobacco taxation as a nonprofit intervention but illicit trade with smuggling being a part of that erodes the efficacy of such interventions, and if there was a cheap way to equip law enforcement with the means to identify illicit products being smuggled, then there may be a financial case to purchase them on their behalf

What areas of the world satisy the constraints: (low funding, very intermittent power, high levels of cigarette smuggling, low corruption)?

I know of a lot of smuggling that will generally be unbribeable if caught, like human, ivory, or drug smuggling.