Friday, July 20, 2007

Gang Kidnaps MMO Top Player For His Account

Pulled this one off Xinhua via Bluesnews -

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Police arrested a gang on Tuesday that kidnapped the top scorer of online game GunBound in order to force him to transfer his gaming account to them.

The player, whose identity has been kept secret, was the owner of the account with the highest score in the online game GunBound, developed and maintained by South Korea's Softnyx, and distributed in Brazil by OnGame.

According to the police, the group, the self-titled "La Firma," allegedly threatened video game players and tried to force them to transfer their accounts with their scores to the gang members.

Investigations showed they attempted to transfer GunBound's top scorer's account 23 times. After failing to succeed they lured the victim by setting him up on a date with a girl in Guarulhos, in Sao Paulo's metropolitan region.
Tamires Rodrigues Vieira, 19, met the game champion in an online chat room and arranged the date, which she did not attend. Instead, another member of the scheme showed up and, with a handgun, obligated the victim to go to an Internet cafe to transfer his points to the gang. They then released the score for sale on a website for 15,000 reals (about 8,000 U.S. dollars).

Police arrested Vieira, along with other suspects Anderson Faquini, 19; Alexsander Kaiser Pereira, 27; and Igor da Silva Carvalho, 27. Police also seized a digital camera, a mobile phone,a laptop and other computer devices.

OnGame stated that GunBound is one of the most popular online games in some Asian countries, and which was released in 2004 in Brazil, where it has 2.7 million registered users. Although the company forbids the trade of personal accounts, police have uncovered a black market selling scores for up to 5,000 reals (about 2,700 dollars).
So. Careful about meeting those 19 year old hotties, all you Level 70s out there. *snort*

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