Back in 2017, we learned about the biggest heist in EVE Online history (opens in new tab): a year-long inside job that ultimately took an estimated 1.5 trillion ISK (worth about $10,000 in real money). But now another EVE player claims to have pulled off a heist worth significantly more than that, with significantly less effort.

The 2017 heist, like many of EVE's most interesting stories, relied primarily on social engineering: spending months or years taming the target before pulling the rug out from under them. But redditor Flam_Hill (open in new tab) said the job was not bloody: instead of betrayal, the theft involved learning and exploiting EVE Online's "stock structure," which was part of the Pandemic Horde alliance, a 299 members, relied on the takeover of Event Horizon Expeditionaries, a company composed of 299 members.

Flan_Hill and an unnamed partner applied for membership in the EHEXP enterprise using "a clean account with a character with little history." After the account was approved, Flan_Hill transferred enough shares of the company to the infiltrator so that he could call for a vote on the new CEO. Both conspirators voted yes, but no one else in the company voted at all. [Because after 72 hours, the two "yes" votes won the day. The undercover agent suddenly became CEO and was used to make Flan_Hill a director of Event Horizon Expeditionaries.

They took 130 billion ISK from the company's wallet, but that was only part of it: Flam_Hill counted all the stolen assets, including several large ships, and estimated the total value of the heist at 2.23 trillion ISK. ISK can be legally cashed in from EVE Online. It cannot be used to purchase in-game currency Plex (opens in new tab), which is used to upgrade accounts, purchase virtual goods, and activate other services.

This sounds rather mundane compared to many of EVE's expensive betrayals. A wealthy corporation was left alone and a pair of smart guys figured out how to take advantage of it by leveraging the rules of the game, and Flam_Hill essentially confirmed that point in the coda to their story: "The well-being and security of a corporation or alliance lies in the management of its leaders, and the activities of its members are of paramount importance. This robbery was made possible by the fact that I came into the stocks by pure chance and that the EHEXP leadership hardly recorded a heartbeat."

What some redditors took issue with in this story was the source of the 1000 shares of Event Horizon Expeditionaries that made this theft possible in the first place. Some redditors theorized that Flam_Hill was actually a long-time founder of the company and that he had kept the shares in his personal wallet for years. Others said he may have purchased the character from a member of the firm who forgot to remove the shares from his wallet before transferring ownership.

Sgt_Dashing, one of the redditors, said it could have been a simple mistake. Without knowing how it works properly, "it's entirely possible that during the creation of a corporation, you could misclick or otherwise mishandle a stock."

What everyone agrees on is that at least this strategy is workable. It all comes down to EVE's corporate voting system (open in new tab): any member of a company that owns at least 5% of all shares can initiate a vote, and "the option that receives at least 50% of the total votes cast wins" in practice. This is why the inattention of the EHEXP members was so crucial: since only Flam_Hill and his partners voted "yes," they received 100% of the votes and were able to seize power.

Redditor 961402 tested this strategy in practice by transferring 1,000 shares of stock in a corporation to a non-member account and applying and being invited through the standard corporate application process. The test seemed to hit a wall as the option to propose a vote did not appear, but another Redditor noted that the character's corporate management skills would need to be trained to at least 1 in order for the option to work.

"So the option to 'run for CEO' appeared and I voted for myself," wrote 961402.

"Success. This is one of the things I like about EVE: no matter what you want to do, chances are there are skills you've overlooked and not trained for.

CCP Games, the developer of EVE Online, declined to comment on the amount of the theft, but confirmed that the heist did indeed take place, dispelling any doubts.

As it turns out, the "former CEO" theory turned out to be correct: the ringleader of the heist, known in EVE to PC Gamer as Sienna d'Orien, real name Dave, was in fact the Event Horizon confirmed that he was the founder and former chief of Expeditionaries. He left EVE in 2018 citing burnout and other priorities, but returned in 2022 to find EHEXP "a shell of its former self."

After forming a new group, Dave contacted the corporation to inquire about getting some of his old assets back, but was ignored. Later, his robbery partner, Packrat, took out a stock mechanic and they got to work. They were assisted by a third friend and former EHEXP member, Highlander McLeod, who took charge of part of the investigation to keep Doreen's name out of it.

"I toyed with the idea for a week or so, but EHEXP had lost ground and was a shadow of its former self. So I gave Packratt the green light to go undercover."

Dave also clarified that he did not hold the stock as part of a long-term plan, but rather as an "on-the-spot idea." He said, "There were still a few pilots at EHEXP that I flew with, including Chee Aki, but none of them wanted to talk to me, which made the decision easier."

They succeeded in getting the job done in virtually complete anonymity, but Dave said he was stepping out of the shadows because "eventually it would come out."

What makes these even more surprising is that this is not a new tactic. For example, in a 2014 Reddit thread (opens in new tab), several Redditors claimed that the company's stock was used in ethically dubious ways, including ousting and taking over the CEO. There is widespread agreement that the entire stock system is, if not broken, at least too easy to exploit: "Even theoretically good applications can be abused on a massive scale (and legally) by anyone with the basic willingness to look into a test server and see what it can and cannot do. Redditor Scout1Treia writes: "It is possible to abuse it on a large scale (and legally) if one has the basic willingness to look into a test server to see what it does and does not do.

So, after years of backstabbing, backstabbing, bloody revenge, and years of campaigning, the biggest heist in EVE Online history seems to have been committed by someone who figured out how to apply the adage "There is no rule that says dogs can't play basketball" to EVE Online It seems to have been done by While it may seem very tedious and bookish in comparison, this is an amazing feat, and I'm enjoying it very much in that it demonstrates that having a very detailed knowledge of the rules can sometimes go a very long way. redditor Intransigient said, "This is the result of not understanding how Corporations work in EVE.

As for Dave, who is currently playing "with old buddies and a new coop," he admits that the heist may complicate life in the game somewhat.

"It's a game after all, and you might get hunted as much as you might get applauded. In the big heist the judges did before, I actually received threats, and I don't foresee that happening because most of the EHEXP don't know me." If I were to receive threats or anything like that, CCP would take action.

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