for all we know, they are two kinds of smugglers:
the transporter:
these ones are the most insane and impatient kind of smugglers, they don't care about security, the reason is simple -> speed and piloting skills, they are fast, they know it, they bet everything on it, there's no scanner fast enough to compete, they boost like crazy into stations and manage to perfectly land on pads at high speed and there's nothing anyone can do about it, especially the poor security guy behind his cockpit, but they tend to believe they are unstoppable and abuse there luck, sometimes something bad happen (only happened one time for me

)
few ships can perform really well, as they need speed, agility, a small/medium ship to pass the entrance of stations easily and some cargo, usually multi-purpose ships and fighters are best
the cool smuggler:
if the transporter looks like a stuntman from action movies, the cool smuggler is more an artist, he takes his sweet time calculating every detail, he can deactivate most of his modules so his ship can become very cold, meaning virtual invisibility, or use heat sink to help him cool of and be almost impossible to scan even in short range, with a good knowledge of his ship and nerves of steel, a cool smuggler is usually VERY safe
The good news is that a lot more ships can be used as cool smugglers, all you need is organisation, knowledge, a ship that runs as cool as possible and heat sinks