25/02/122: Kamio VI - Moon 7 - Sukuuvestaa Corporation Production Plant
A Sukuuvestaa investigative tribunal has concluded after thorough examination that the death of crime lord Igor Kaitu, an overboss working for the Guristas in the regions of Sanctum and Sinq Laison by high speed hovercar accident aboard the Sukuuvestaa Corporation Production Plant station in Kamio is the result of electronic tampering.
The spokeswoman for the local branch of LAWbringer Co., the current law enforcement contractor for Sukuuvestaa’s station, Yuru Isaro, said in a statement, “At this moment, we are treating the electronic attack as a multiple homicide and are attempting to locate the culprit and determine the method whereby the vehicle was accessed. However, what we do know is that the death of Mr. Kaitu and his passengers and the serious injury of three others in the resultant collisions, were both intentional and premeditated on behalf of an as-yet unknown third party.”
Chief Overboss Igor Kaitu was known to authorities operating on behalf of CONCORD in the Sanctum region, specifically as the primary Guristas affiliate managing that region and expansion efforts in neighboring Gallente space. He was also known to be involved in ordering and organizing the conflict against the Alabaster Song Ring, a large, independent criminal organization which is responsible for the majority of criminal operations in the Sanctum region. Both organizations are said to be headquartered in the Secure Commerce Commission Depository in Tar, an underdeveloped system in Sanctum. Kaitu’s death preceded a wave of pacification attacks by the Alabaster Song Ring, as well as infighting as members of Kaitu’s Guristas organization struggle to take control.
“We expect the next few weeks to be relatively dangerous, but we must send the message that we do not tolerate any criminal organization to operate in the Sanctum region. This space belongs to the honest, hardworking people of the system. It is not territory to be divided up by hooligans,” says Lieutenant Mendos Villier, Special Crimes Unit Lead for the Tar Police division of CONCORD, in a statement. “We urge citizens to stay cautious and alert, and to report any criminal activity they see so we can put this unnecessary gang war to rest.”
At present, LAWbringer Co. is operating under the assumption that the Alabaster Song Ring is responsible for the attack, though Lieutenant Villier was noncommittal. “The Alabaster Song Ring actually is not very technologically sophisticated, and the report we read indicated this to be a very high level electronic attack.”
Indeed, the manner in which the attack was carried out is still baffling LAWbringer criminal investigators.
“We do know that, for an as-yet unknown reason, Mr. Kaitu was driving quickly and recklessly with two associates in the car,” said Korut Thimnasan, Cybersecurity Investigations Division II lead for the Tar Police division of CONCORD, presently involved in the investigation as a consultant. “We also know that he very quickly commandeered a vehicle he did not own and this was the vehicle involved in the crash. We also know that, within ten minutes, as he was traveling through the SuVee station in Kamio, a third party managed to somehow access the vehicle’s maintenance protocols and open their own command shell. This third party then used their command over the maintenance protocol to disable several redundant safety features, lock the accelerator in the current position, disable all onboard braking, and then engaged the right front retro-repeller.”
The car then slid out of control, constantly accelerating with one front thruster firing wildly, until contact was made with a nearby automobile seconds later. This guided the car into a protruding guard rail. The impact nearly split the car in half from front to back, and the resultant damage ignited the capacitance gel in the car’s battery bank. All three men in that automobile, including Mr. Kaitu, were killed by either the impact or the resultant explosion and fire. The car contacted by the accident ended up sliding against the guard rail, and the couple who were inside at the time suffered serious injuries. They were released from hospital after a week, expected to make a full recovery.
However, police are still baffled by how Mr. Kaitu’s commandeered vehicle was infiltrated so quickly and interfered with so accurately. Further investigation has discounted the possibility that the station-side security surveillance system was compromised. No other vehicle or drone was seen pursuing Mr. Kaitu, the theft of the vehicle he was driving had not been reported at the time, and the footage of Mr. Kaitu and his vehicle has not been altered.
“Whoever was operating that command shell managed to input precisely the correct set of commands for that make of hovercar to cause the accident at precisely the right time, even though there was no way to know what car Mr. Kaitu was going to take. We can only surmise that they knew where he was going, but how they knew when precisely he was going there, or when or if he would arrive precisely at the scene of the crash, is still unknown,” Thimnasan said. “If it hadn’t unquestionably happened and evidence for the tampering been undeniable, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me that it would be possible. I give great credit to LAWbringer Co. and their staff who even investigated the possibility and found that there was no other way for this series of failures to happen.”
Mr. Kaitu was later found to have visited the station regularly, but investigators have yet to understand precisely why. It is not thought that Mr. Kaitu’s criminal enterprise extended so far as Kamio, nor are any of his Guristas contacts or administration thought to use that station as a base of operations or means of communication. It is thought that, considering this new method of attack, the deliberate nature of the hack and difficulty of investigators to discover a culprit sends a message on behalf of those who carried it out.
Lieutenant Villier says that, for the moment, he is grateful for LAWbringer Co.'s assistance in the matter of investigating the death of Mr. Kaitu, but the greater danger is the power vacuum he leaves in Sanctum, and particularly the Tar system. “A wave of reprisal killings and pacification attempts by the Alabaster Song Ring erupted hours after the incident and continue to the present, and so it is a matter of re-establishing order and taking advantage of the situation before either the Alabaster Song takes over the entirety of the station’s criminal enterprise or one of Mr. Kaitu’s lieutenants assumes control of his operations.”
Thimnasan grimly expects the Alabaster Song to best benefit from the situation. “They reacted almost as soon as it happened, which is why we assume they contracted out the murder to the party who managed this. We do not assume the Alabaster Song Ring itself has this level of expertise or capability. We frankly don’t know anyone who does.”
Spokeswoman Yuru Isaro spoke adamantly on the subject. “We are still investigating the matter, and will until it is resolved. No matter the methods employed, this was murder, pure and simple, for gain. And whoever is responsible will be brought to justice. We will not rest until it is so.”
LAWbringer Co. has offered a 100,000 ISK reward for any information which would answer facts in this case, and has asked that those that have said information should contact LAWbringer Co. franchise 1453-A in the Sukuuvestaa Corporation Production Plant, asking for Detective Ghalio.
