[Writing] Anyone familiar with or works in a commercial seaport?

[MLai]

I'm writing a fiction where the first chapter takes place at the Port of Boston, probably commercial sector like Conley Terminal. It's been causing me quite a writer's block because I am unfamiliar with commercial ports, and I don't want the first scene of the first chapter to make me look like an idiot. But it's kind of hard to do research for the scene in question.

Basically, my draft calls for some human traffickers to smuggle about less than a dozen people in a shipping container, and the scene took place on a freight ship where this shipping container is. My block is I don't know if this is a realistic method to smuggle people. As long as it's even semi-reasonable (assume you bribe some key people, or you know how to bypass the usual security), then it's good. But it may be completely unrealistic and I need to know.

Or, if it's possible, but the scene needs to be modified... such as it shouldn't take place on the ship itself because the container cannot be opened once it's on the ship already, then at least I can work on it. I don't mind modifying the scene.

Can someone who's familiar with commercial ports advise me? It feels as if I see setups like this in movies all the time, but now that I think about the actual logistics, it seems unlikely.

[Chambers]

One way to avoid dealing with the "how do they avoid/bribe security?" question is to have the ship go to a dock that doesn't have a lot of security. That seems like a snarky answer, but what I mean is the ship is engaged in an illegal activity and they'd probably want to go to a "shady" dock/port that doesn't have all the newest security features and maybe doesn't ask too many questions.

If you don't want to switch docks then opening the container on the freighter ship may be a good idea. As long as care was taken to place the container on top/aside others so that the doors can be opened, it would make a certain amount of sense for the criminals to want to unload their cargo from the freighter onto a smaller boat that would slip away before the freighter goes through customs.