The Smiling Assassin: Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Infiltration

There was no point in doing anything suspicious for at least a month, there was the chance he could be found out so TSA made sure to login and lurk rather than say or do much. The idea being that by establishing a corporation  history or at least a month he could allay any suspicion should he be discovered within that time.

He spent the time logged in watching the chat channels and recording details of activities performed by those he saw. Better to avoid PvP focused people and concentrate on the industrialists, PvE and, like himself, newer players to the Corporation/Alliance.

Once in the corporation it was time to reconnoiter, identifying the different characters within the the corp and when they were most active. 

It took longer than expected but after three months TSA was ready to strike.

Variations On A Scam

One fateful July day TSA logged in with his alt and decided to work a different angle from what he usually did. It had been suggested that he link NPC Loss Mails and claim that the pilots were his alts. Perhaps this would be enough to solicit donations to help replace the loss.

"Not a bad idea in theory" the TSA thought and he began linking various NPC losses in Corp chat. In practice it turned out to be harder getting anyone to gift him ISK than getting blood from a stone, his corporation was full of tight-walleted players who would only laugh or cringe at the losses he presented.

So TSA decided to try a slightly different approach, everyone in the alliance rats and as he'd linked losses it would make a lot of sense to ask for advice from others on how to correctly fit a ratting ship.

Evolution - Ratting Advice

People in the corporation responded to TSA's pleas for advice, people offered fitting advice, recommendations and linked their own fits for him to view. He then took a chance and privately convo'd two of the pilots offering advice asking if he could "borrow, definitely not permanently, for a test drive before he bought a new one".

TSA > Shot in the dark here, and I won't be offended in the slightest if you decline.

TSA > But is there any possibility I could borrow that fit for like... two hours?

TSA > Just wanna test it out before I buy one.

TSA > Well, figure out if I want to buy one or not I should say haha

Three people bit the bait and two, after a convo with TSA, with a third (Armageddon) without a convo, contracted ships.

One offered an Armageddon but asked TSA to bring it from Jita:

Commander Kyle > well I wouldn't mind, only thing is my geddon is like 30 jumps from 0.0 on my alt, thats why I had to type it out rather than link it

TSA > Aaaaaaah, shit.

Commander Kyle > yeah lol XD will have to take it down when i've got a clear day

TSA > If it's in highsec, I'll do you the favour of dragging it out on my hauler alt if you don't mind me blowing through an anom or not.

Commander Kyle > ill contract it to you

Commander Kyle > its in a system called nibainkier

Another offered a Dominix, again to be bought in from Jita:

TSA > Got the alt back in Jita, docking up just as soon as this cow enters warp.

Rhakaro > i havent bought the domi yet

Rhakaro > hang on

Rhakaro > ill send u isk

Rhakaro > u can buy it and bring it in?

TSA > *nods*

TSA > Can do dude

TSA > 197 mil is lowest in Jita, unless I'm mistaken.

Rhakaro > ccc rigged domi

Rhakaro > isk sent

Rhakaro > that ok?

TSA > Thanks for the 5 mil tip dude :D

Three ships accepted and now TSA had to pretend move them. The scam had evolved quickly and very profitably so far...

TSA Freight Services

Making an out-of-corp freighter run to from Jita to Esescama will be passing through Amarr. Leaving in 10 minutes. Convo me if you have anything you want hauled.

The offer was made to the corporation how would you like to "get stuff moved to our null sec home via an out of alliance freighterbro" as, yet again, the alliance was in a war that prevented the safe movement through high sec. The only stipulation that TSA made to anyone using the service was that they pay for fuel used.

TSA Freight Services - If it absolutely must never arrive

This itself is hilarious as freighters in high sec consume no fuel and as no jumps will be made this was another method to extract ISK from the marks.

In just a few hours TSA has found the Corporation members to be a very profitable source of ISK, so why not take the next step and advertise to the Alliance; so TSA copy/pastes his advert into Alliance chat to see what else could be reeled in.

It worked, shortly after advertising to the alliance TSA received a request to buy and move an Arazu:

Timeline Redghost > Can you bring down an ARAZU?

Timeline Redghost > gimme the prize i'll send money

TSA > Def got room for a cruiser :)

TSA > Contract it to this toon, please. I don't like to link my hauler alt.

Timeline Redghost > meh, i have not it in jita I've to send money to buy it

TSA > You want rigs on it? If just T1 rigs I'll throw them on for free.

TSA > I'm fucking rolling in rigs, produced way too many a month back.

Timeline Redghost > hull

TSA > Kk

Timeline Redghost > should be 154 or like

TSA > Cheapest at 153 in Jita

Timeline Redghost > eve central

TSA > 153.9*

TSA > Send the isk over and I'll drag it out for you.

Timeline Redghost > I send to you and thank, don't forget my name fot tha contract back :)

and another to move implants worth around 100m ISK.

scopered > were are you dropping the stuff off in null or in hs

TSA > I'm stopping off in both

scopered > 1 sec got a little shopping list

TSA > I've stopped in Amarr for a bit, you gonna be long?

scopered > Inherent Implants 'Noble' Repair Systems RS-603 x1

scopered > Eifyr and Co. 'Gunslinger' Motion Prediction MR-703 x 1

scopered > Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Gunnery RF-903 x1

scopered > Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Large Energy Turret LE-1003 x1

scopered > Inherent Implants 'Squire' Energy Management EM-803

scopered > please

scopered > should be about 100 mill give or take

TSA > Fuck it, send 110 for a bit extra for fuel and I'll send you whatever I don't use.

scopered > there normaly about 20 mill each

scopered > and theres 5

scopered > sent m8

A few pilots asked for packages to be bought in to the region from Amarr/Jita and paid for these upfront instead of using Courier Contracts. This all helped to pad out the wallet.

Reeling In A Whale

The advertisement in alliance didn't yield many bites but the corporation advert hooked, what turned out to be, a whale of size to dwarf he accomplishments so far.

TSA opened the conversation request from a new corporation member and the conversation moved to requests for advice on manufacturing ship rigs. TSA strung the member along providing information and advice on how best to setup manufacturing, even including a wildly inaccurate quote of 1.3 billion ISK that would be needed to enable a start to production.

The pilot even wrote:

"You seem like a nice guy, what could go wrong :P"

and shortly thereafter TSA's wallet flashed as the 1.3 billion ISK was transferred.  But wait! He hasn't finished there as later asks for help to move ~100m worth of salvage out of the region to sell in Jita and he offers a battleship to TSA "for use when ratting".

Tally... So Far

At this point TSA was feeling very lucky, previous attempts to the freighter scam had only yielded a few hundred million ISK and here, in one mornings work, he was sitting on nearly two billion ISK, four T2 fit battleships and an Arazu with odds and an indeterminate value of modules and salvage.

After starting the day with just 120,000,000 ISK and a Newbie Ship he was now seeing a very fattened wallet and a collection of ships that could be disassembled and sold for even more profit.

Our last chapter leads us into the wrap up of the scam and the, as TSA put it, “delicious tears” that flowed upon his unmasking.

The Smiling Assassin Quick Links

Episode 1 - Introduction

Episode 2 - History

Episode 3 - Choosing the Target

Episode 4 - Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Episode 5 - The Scammer Revealed

The Smiling Assassin: Choosing the Target

The Aim

TSA has one aim in mind with his next target, profit.

It’s a simple concept but infiltrating the right corporation and gaining the trust of the leadership enough to be put into a position where corp theft was possible as well as being able to extract ISK from other members is not easy.

This requires the real life skill of Social Engineering V and even then there is no guarantee that the infiltration will be successful. This means that finding the right target, with sufficient lax security, is vital.

Targets Aplenty

There are plenty of Alliances and Corporations in New Eden that are ripped for infiltration but TSA had received suggestions from friends that he target one particular Alliance based on their history and their current relationships with other entities in their region.

It didn’t hurt either that TSA had been a frequent visitor to this Alliance’s home systems in the past and his success there had resulted in, what he referred to, the locals “having a hateboner” for him.

To him this isn’t just a scam but a scam with a longer-term metagaming bonus to it and that most important aspect:

Fun!

The Target

This particular alliance is not known for it's "smarts" and certainly has a less than stellar reputation with the other occupants near their space. It's not unknown for them to lose expensive ratting ships or capital industrial ships because pilots aren't even paying attention to the local Intel channels.

In fact intel is something I've heard they do their way and only their way meaning that whereas local constellation residents share an intel channel the members of this alliance are instructed to use only the intel channel for the other areas of the region. At least that was the dictate in 2013 when I found out, it may have changed since then.

TSA has spent time investigating the various corporations making up the alliance and eventually found one that was not stringent in it's background checks and was fairly lax in most basic security measures found in other corporations. 

The Corporation Repubblica Indipendente di Genova of the Yulai Federation Alliance, who reside in seven systems in Northern Providence, now had one more member, only this member wasn’t interested in the well being and success of it’s new home...

Staying Safe

It's worth pointing out at this point that TSA’s alt character has had a shared corp history with his  main’s personal corp and has a bio full of quotes by a pilots in alliances that are red/kos to his new home. If they had checked his API it would have shown a history of transactions with red characters and a contact list full of people who are red.

Fortunately for him this corporation did not ask for an API nor did they perform any form of vetting before allowing him to join. Now he was in he needed to lay low and gather intelligence in order to successfully perform a scam later on. 

Being seen but not being seen is the first step, he would login and remain idle occasionally adding to conversations within his corporation but remaining out of alliance chats. As time passed and he remained in the corporation it gave more legitimacy to his alt as not being a infiltration character. Questions of loyalty would be easier to deflect and any characters who did claim he was a scammer would not be believed.

TSA has also been very lucky in that this particular corporation seem to have inactive leadership, the only semi-active member of the leadership Director, Sarah Barathian, is AFK more than active.

Joining

After deciding on the target he made sure he was ready and moved other character assets nearby in order to support the infiltration alt as needed.

He applied and was accepted in without so much as an API check...

The Smiling Assassin: History

In the Beginning

The Smiling Assassin did not start off in EVE Online as a scammer but after getting sick of ratting for ISK he started building Stabber's and then, before the faction icon was introduced into contracts, he would rename them to Stabber Fleet Issue and sell them by the dozen in Amarr.

Amarr at the time wasn't plagued by as many scams as it is today so it was a very profitable enterprise, so much so that TSA setup an alt whom would be dedicated to scamming and increasing his ISK.

Scamming Corporations

Over time the Stabber scams evolved into corp scams, with early attempts being as simple as asking benevolent CEO's if they could lend him ISK for PLEX. Of course this came with promises to repay any loan but never were.

Remaining in a corporation longer than a few days TSA would ask for roles in order to make use of Corporation Hangers or get access to any Corporation Hangers and in turn POSes (should corporation have one in high sec). This was another hit and miss thing and several times he turned his hand too early and had to leave before being able to steal anything.

However over time his social skills improved and he would be able to not just get ISK from marks but also access to Corporation Hangers which, often contained plenty to steal. In every case, if it wasn't nailed down the TSA would steal it.

The Fairer Sex

TSA has refined his corp theft methods each time he uses it but it isn't his only approach. He's found a female character, who has a permanently broken microphone, to be a very good method of extracting ISK from unsuspecting players who try to flirt and ingratiate themselves.

Pretending to be that elusive of EVE Online player, "the female gamer", has been very profitable with this particular alt has been a member of at least six corporations and has been able to extract from each at least one PLEX and a lot of ships and modules.

Inside the Mind

EVE is played by many different personalities and in many different ways. Talking to TSA you get the feeling that he enjoys the meta-game more than the "spaceships in space" game play and this turns out to be true as I found when I asked him about his play style:

Understanding how I play the game and what will explain why I play the way I play, is that I find the meta-game of EVE infinitely more fun than the actual game itself. I still love PvPing, don't get me wrong I enjoy the game itself, but it's all of the additional facets that aren't present in other games that keep me interested.

I asked what he thought about the PvE or ratting aspect of the game and he replied, rather bluntly, that:

Any kind of ISK-grind absolutely kills the game for me.

It's no surprise, PvE/ratting can be incredibly boring and very tiring to do and again no surprise that he turned to alternative methods of ISK income comprising corp infiltration and scamming.

This leads us nicely into the next chapter of our story, the infiltration and mockery of a, minor, null sec alliance.

The Smiling Assassin: Introduction

Background

I've been in EVE Online for a little over four years now and I've met a lot of players with different play styles. Some are/were industrialists, others PvP focused but the smallest minority also became that loathed personality of EVE Online, the Scammer.

If I was to map my EVE Online contacts somewhere, right in the middle, would be the CEO of my current corporation. It is he who, along with my out of game playing friends, has had the largest input in my in-game activates and the people I know and it is through him that I came to meant "The Smiling Assassin".

The Smiling Assassin

Hereafter referred to as TSA, has an extensive corporation history. He is a very PvP focused player but he has the social skills that he uses to infiltrate a target corporation for profit, usually through awox-ing or asset theft.

When he's not infiltrating a target he's an extremely adept foe in just about any ship and regularly roams through the regions of New Eden looking for targets. 

I have a number of stories that I'll be writing about, with TSA's permission, over the next few weeks where share his adventures as well as lessons that can be learnt from the outcomes of these adventures.

What’s To Come

Which brings us to the present where TSA managed to get an alt into a null sec alliance and has, despite being "outed" at least once, managed to gain a good reputation and work his way in the confidence of his corporation and alliance and is poised to reap the benefits.

He's on this map, he could be in your alliance or even your corporation

Over the following episodes you’ll get to know TSA and see the results of his work:

Episode 1 - Introduction

Episode 2 - History

Episode 3 - Choosing the Target

Episode 4 - Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Episode 5 - The Scammer Revealed