EVE Online Players Steal £17,900 Worth Of In-Game Currency

A couple of EVE Online players have managed to pull of the biggest heist in the game's history in a daring corporate takeover ruthless investors the world over might admire.

The job, like any good caper, took some careful planning and clever exploitation. Over on the Eve subreddit, the OP shared how they pulled it off, in a heist that netted the players 2.2 trillion ISK or £17,900/$22,300 in real money since the in-game currency can be bought with real-world cash.

The OP, a redditor called Flam_Hill, was the mastermind. The theft in question required research into the "shares mechanic" in EVE Online to leverage a takeover of the 299-member corporation Event Horizon Expeditionaries, which forms a part of the Pandemic Horde alliance (via PC Gamer).

Pandemic Horde Corporation looses 2 Trillion isk!
by u/Flam_Hill in Eve

The architect of the job was in possession of 1000 shares of Event Horizon Expeditionaries, and wanted to take advantage of the situation. They paired up with another player and together begun researching the shares mechanic. They carried out reconnaissance, observing the activities of the corp and noticed the CEO and directors showed "minimal activity".

But the players needed to be in on the inside in order pull it all off. So, creating a "very clean account with a character with a little history", a corporate application was submitted. From there the two players had to wait to get past security checks but eventually managed to maneuvre the corporation into a vote for CEO. The vote came and the two players voted 'yes' to ousting the CEO and they got their way!

After a nerve-wracking 72-hour wait, the players assumed control over the entire corporation and continued ousting the remaining Directors and removing their roles. They would proceed to empty the corporation's wallet of 130 billion ISK before finding other assets. Ultimately, the heist total came to 2.230 trillion ISK. While the players can't cash out ISK, it can be used to buy Plex, an in-game currency that can be used to buy upgrades for accounts, virtual goods, and services.

While it sounds rather heisty, Flam_Hill did concede that it was all made possible by "only two things", the fact they came into the shares by "pure chance" and that the EHEXP leadership were basically neglectful and oblivious. Other redditors in the thread, however, did question the provenance of the shares, wondering how the OP came into possession of them, with some speculating they may have been a departed founder of the corp, but others conjectured it could've been a simple mistake arising from share mismanagement.

But the strategy that led to the heist was deemed plausible and viable by the community. EVE Online developer CCP Games confirmed that the heist did occur, to PC Gamer, with the events taking place around two weeks ago. The previous biggest heist in EVE Online occurred in 2017 with a year-long inside job that made off with around 1.5 trillion ISK, which amounts to around $10,000 in real money, although that particular job was a far more bloody affair.