They must be smuggled inside the country and the dictatorship can say anything they want and charge if they get caught so they must be very few in numbers

I don't know too much about starlink but is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world?

Because how would people get starlink device. I dont know the mecanism of startlink though or how it works

Starlink receivers are actually very complicated. They make use of a bunch of high-end FPGAs and a bunch of other expensive and uncommon components. See this teardown: https://youtu.be/h6MfM8EFkGg?si=m-sN6UW4nh8_HzPR.

Yes, there are NGOs and organizations that sponsor these and pay for them. Here is an example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-...

> is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world?

Starlink uses a pretty sophisticated phased array antenna, so not something you can easily build in your garage.

I wonder how easy is it to get contraband into the country. The country's huge, and with the current govt not being the most popular or financially well off, I guess there are quite a few border officers willing to make some extra money.

Starlink receivers aren't built out of common readily available components. It's fancy RF stuff.