Largest virtual theft in an MMORPG

In Eve Online, players accumulate resources and ISK, the game’s currency, by fair means or foul. The largest haul for an in-game fraudster goes to a character called Cally, who set up the Eve Intergalactic Bank in early 2006. To start with, it operated like a normal bank, taking deposits, loaning money and charging interest, until Cally stole an estimated 790 billion ISK from its coffers (approximately $29,000 at the market rate of the time) and posted a video confession online. Since such actions are allowed under the game’s licence, Cally got away with his “crime”. In mid-2014, an alliance known as Cynosural Field Theory raised 1.19 trillion ISK by ripping off a number of supercapital ship buyers using confidence scams. However, although this figure was larger, the exchange rate between ISK and US dollars was lower at the time, so this value equated to "only" around $19,200 in comparative real-world value. Featured in Guinness World Records Gamer''s Edition 2010

UPDATE (as of 22 June 2015):

Developer CCP explains how ISK is calculated into real-world equivalent of US dollars:

"1.19 trillion is a lot of money in game. In fact, as a rough idea, this amount of in game currency is roughly a fifth of the total annual operating budget of the most powerful alliance in EVE Online, using their 2014 financial figures. For a small alliance, this is basically akin to someone striking oil while digging foundations for a new garage.

"We calculate the dollar value by using the value of PLEX, which is an in game token that equates to 30 days of game time. These tokens are available for real money at the price of a month’s subscription, but are freely transferrable in game between characters via the market and trading.

As of 22 June 2015, the value of a PLEX in game is around 930,000,000 ISK

We use the wholesale real world value of PLEX ($15/pu) as a base line for working out an exchange rate. So in this case:

1,190,000,000,000 / 930,000,000 gives us 1279.56 PLEX

Let’s call that 1280, then we multiply that number by the wholesale dollar value of PLEX, $15 – That gives us the dollar value we use to explain the value of assets in EVE, in this case $19,200.

Given that the price of PLEX fluctuates, it acts as kind of an exchange rate between the game and the real world. While the dollar value is completely arbitrary in reality, it’s a useful indicator so that we can give people an idea of just how much damage is being caused within the game on a scale that they can understand."