Trade runs that don't step on toes...

[Fozzie]

I've been playing this game for months and I can't figure out where people are making so much money. I fly a 3500 cargo unit Firefly and the most I can make per run is about 5 mil for a 15 min run. So in a solid hour I make 20 IF I don't get raped by "3mil r die" pirates or fly something I had no idea was contraband untill someone demands I drop it. Most often I trade for an hour and maybe end up 10 mil from where I started. I even tried the diamond niobium run and that only paid me a little over 5. I know players who are hardly ever here and have 10 chars all with capships and billions to spend. All I want are a few solid routes , not to get instantly rich. The one good route I've found has no return trip so it wastes 10+ min flying to where I can get profitable goods. I have searched the forums finding nothing helpful. I asked other players and got runarounds and wild goose chases so now I'm asking here.
I get the feeling I'll be told to spend more hours and hours reading old forum topics but this hasn't been helping. Yesterday I tried to fly diamonds to Tokyo the long way and got nailed by Dragons 1 jump from Tokyo. I didn't realize diamonds were contraband anywhere. and I'm having the hardest time figuring where I fit in here. To be perfectly clear I'm not looking for orp runs, I know pirates and lawfuls are part of the game but I really can not catch a break I get pirated or hassled by lawfuls on nearly every run and it's making this game less fun all the time. I can't usually afford to build or play my other chars because I spend most of my game time in a seemingly futile attempt to trade.

Ps. the trade routes on the wiki are all wrong, must be old info.