In some of my past articles, especially related to my Gun Running and Doomsday Heist experiences, you’ll have read that I’ve had to register as a CEO in order to participate in these specific kinds of activities. I’ve never fully explored or understood what it means to be a CEO in the GTA 5 Online experience and how it can benefit me.

That has all recently changed though as I’ve started getting involved in the original CEO activities and abilities that were available when it was originally released. I now realize that it’s something I should’ve gotten involved in much sooner to help earn some serious money, but I will say I’ve had to burn through a lot of it to in order to participate in these CEO Activities.

Build up a Criminal Empire

When Rockstar first released this content to the online portion of GTA 5, they showcased in the trailer for it, that you can build an online criminal empire by different means. You have the ability of buying property that would be the headquarters of your criminal operation and you can add different things to it as you see fit such as a car garage, a safe for money, an armory, sleeping quarters, and more.

I initially purchased a property which was the Maze Bank building so that I could participate in some of the later online content that was released such as the Gunrunning Content. I knew you had to be registered as a CEO in order to participate in the later content that was released, but I never gave thought on the things you can do as a CEO besides the newer stuff that came later.

Well one day I decided to give the original CEO missions a try so that I can earn some money. I will have to say though that it is still a work in progress, but I’ve actually come a long way in part of it. There are some special vehicles that I’ve wanted to get for awhile now, but in order for me to do that, I have to take part in CEO missions which are called Import/Export Missions that are part of the original CEO content.

When you register as CEO and you access the computer to do work as a criminal, there will be 3 options, but they’ll all be grayed out initially and that’s because you have to buy special property in order to participate in them. There’s Special Cargo, Vehicle Cargo, and Special Vehicle Work. I’ve been participating the most in the Vehicle Cargo missions.

What you have to do in order to participate in the Vehicle Cargo missions is purchase one of a few special car garages that will store the vehicles that you’ll be “acquiring”. I ended up buying one is a bit of distance from my headquarters. It’s on the other side of the city at El Burro Heights. It’s a pretty large garage and I believe it will hold over 40 vehicles as well as some special vehicles down in the basement. I’m currently up to 33 vehicles being held there.

Once I’ve acquired a vehicle, I then can sell it and get a commission off of it and the commission can vary depending on the buyer as well as the type of vehicle. The thing is though, I have to deliver it in pretty much pristine condition in order to get the full amount of money that I’m promised to be paid.

First thing’s first though as I have to commandeer or steal some of these vehicles and repair them in order to sell them. There are a variety of missions that are random and have to be completed in order to start storing at my garage to eventually be sold. Some of these missions are easy while others can be a bit difficult and have to be completed in a certain amount of time.

An example of one of these type of missions is one where I have to drive to a movie set that’s near Fort Zancudo and steal a high car that is going to be used for a scene where it jumps a ramp. There are armed security guards there and so I do have to engage them and take them out so that I don’t get killed. I do get in the car, but then I have to use its one time rocket boost in order to make the jump from the ramp and ultimately escape.

It’s not an easy ride to my garage in El Burro Heights. I will eventually be chanced by a helicopter as well as goons in vehicles that will fire at me and unfortunately cause damage to the vehicle. The sad thing is though, the more damage the vehicle takes, the costlier the repairs are that I will have to make once I arrive at the garage.

The difficulty of the missions really depends on the type of car you have to get. There was one mission that seemed relatively easy at first. All I had to do was go to a specific location and take a car out of the driveway. No one was waiting for me with guns or started following me when I was heading back towards my garage. Suddenly though there was a beeping and a bomb activated on the vehicle. If I didn’t keep it above a certain speed limit, I would only have mere seconds to get it back up to speed or the bomb would explode. In the meantime, my assistant was doing all she could to deactivate the bomb remotely which would take a couple of minutes.

My first go round with this particular type of mission ended in success. I was able to get to my garage and my assistant deactivated the bomb. I had some close calls, but I ended up completing the mission. My second go round with this type of mission though just did not go as well. As I was trying to get the vehicle back, I ended up crashing into a wall somewhere and actually managed to get the car stuck. For some reason, I just could not really move forward or backwards and needless to say because I could not get to the proper speed, the bomb exploded killing me and destroying the car and I failed the mission.

Something to I want to mention is that when you go to start one of these missions, you also have the opportunity to see certain stats such as cars delivered to the garage, the percentage you have left of number of cars that can be stored there, and percentages of your mission success rate as well as a failure rate. Last I checked, my success rate was close to 80%.

If you don’t feel like taking and selling vehicles, then there is Special Cargo work available. In order to begin those types of missions, you have to buy one of a number of different warehouses spread out around the city. I actually ended buying one not too far from the Maze Bank headquarters.

Now you might just be wondering what of special cargo you’ll be dealing with. Well, it can be anything from paintings and antiques (which is really the only thing I’ve bought so far), valuable jewels, drugs, alcohol and tobacco, electronics, weapons, and more. I haven’t gotten heavily involved in the Special Cargo Missions yet, but once I get my garage full from the vehicle missions, I’ll start getting involved with the cargo mission again and I will share my experiences with them.

CEO Special Abilities

There are other perks and things you get for being a CEO besides just having special missions available to you. There’s what’s called CEO Special Abilities which gives you access to things that you normally don’t get to have as a regular player in GTA 5 online.

One of the abilities you can do as a CEO is call upon what’s known as the Ghost Organization. What does is to hide blips on the map of your VIPs, associates, and bodyguards. This can become quite useful if all of you are partaking in a mission that you don’t want interrupted by other players. Using the Ghost Organization though does cost money, about $12,000 to be exact, so unless you have tons of money, you might want to use it sparingly.

There are some other things you can do as a CEO as well that include dropping ammo, for your organization, bribing authorities, dropping heavy armor, and even requesting a luxury helicopter.

You can also request vehicles should you need them that can spawn near your location. I’ve done this on some occasions, mainly after completing one of the vehicle missions and my motorcycle that I used for the mission is at another location across the map and I need a vehicle to go and retrieve it.

Spawning certain vehicles will cost you money, but if you don’t want to spend any money for that, there are a few vehicles that you can spawn for free such as the BeeJay XL, Washington, Stretch, Patriot, Sanchez, Duneloader, Bodhi, and Havok (Must actually own that one though). Some of these vehicles are too fast, but will certainly get you where you need to go.

Some of the other vehicles do cost a lot to use or spawn by you such as the Buzzard Attack Chopper, but good news is though if you actually own one, it is free for you to spawn. Otherwise, it will cost you around $25,000 to spawn each time.

Gunrunning Business

I’ve talked about Gunrunning before and posted a lot of my experiences with it. If you want to earn money in the illegal arms trade, this is the way to do it in GTA 5. Of course before you can participate in a Gunrunning business, you need to register as a CEO to access the SecuroServe computer in order to begin activities associated with the illegal arms trade.

You can usually register as a CEO at whatever major property you purchased so that you could engage in the vehicle and special cargo missions. As mentioned earlier, I purchased the Maze Bank Building so that’s where I usually go in order to register as a CEO. I love the fact that you also have an assistant.

The next thing you have to do for the Gunrunning business is to purchase an underground bunker as you want to keep these weapons are from the prying eyes of law enforcement and other players in the game. They are quite pricey especially add certain amenities to them. You also have a mobile command center which you can store at your underground bunker.

If you’ve read the first time I started getting into Gunrunning, you’ll have read that I ended up purchasing a bunker way out in Blaine County by the mountains. It really is a great location that tends to be far away from other players. It did cost me a pretty penny, but I think it’s worth it.

After you get all of that taken of, you’ll have personnel as well as machinery and other equipment to begin the manufacturing of weapons that can be sold across the map. What’s nice too is that you can also do research for advanced forms of weaponry and even weaponized vehicles that you can use. Some of these even include surface-to-air missiles!

Now in order to do the research that’s needed to unlock all of these special weapons and modifications, you have to get supplies which can be done in one of two ways. You can either purchase supplies (which can add up pretty quickly), or you can steal them. For the most part, I’ve usually chosen to steal them. If you go this route, Agent 14 will instruct you on what needs to be done to get some supplies and where they’re located at.

Some of these supply missions can be pretty tough, especially the ones where you have to steal a tank from the military or you have to go to a location that has a very heavy mercenary presence. Once you get the supplies, then you have to make it back to your bunker and that can be tough as well as you’ll have the computer controlled enemies on your tail as well as other players now that you’re trying to deliver valuable stuff back to your home base. There’s definitely been many a time when I’ve had players come after me and some were successful in stopping me from reaching my destination thus causing me to fail the mission.

Even though I’ve gone through all of that, I’ve still completed all the supply missions and have unlocked every single one of the weapons and modifications that were available with this content. Only thing that’s left for me to do now is to continuously steal supplies so that I can manufacture weapons and sell them around Blaine County and Los Santos. It’s best to have a crew helping you sell the weapons because you can have a lot of delivery points and won’t have enough time to deliver them all by yourself. You can definitely earn some very nice money through the Gunrunning business.

Doomsday Heist

The Doomsday Heist is currently the one I’m most active in as I haven’t fully completed it yet. I’m currently on Act 3 and ready to do most of the Setup Missions. I’ve talked a lot about my experiences with the Doomsday Heist thus far and it has been very interesting with some surprises.

Now very similar to the Gunrunning Business, you have to purchase certain property in order participate in the Doomsday Heist and you’ll also have to be registered as a CEO in order to participate. There’s an underground facility that you have to purchase, but it does not look anything like any of the bunkers for Gunrunning.

What it looks like instead is a high tech IAA base complete with security personnel a high tech meeting room that will show case what missions you can engage in and even more. What’s really nice about this is that you can store some of your personal vehicles here should you run out of room at your regular garages. I generally will store my Oppressor here.

The premise of the Doomsday Heist is that it appears either the Russians, North Koreans, or Chinese are attempting to get control of weapons facilities to launch nuclear weapons and cause a catastrophic World War. With the help of a CEO from a major high tech company and his artificial computer as well as Lester and some initial help from the IAA, you’ll try to track down who exactly is doing this.

Let’s just say there’s a major twist at the end of Act 2 that really raises the stakes for Act 3 and if you’ve been following my recent posts regarding my experiences of the Doomsday Heist, you’ll have read exactly what that twist is. There are some new weapons and vehicles that can acquired from the Doomsday Heist. That’s all I’ll say for it now, but continue to check back as I will be posting my final experiences of Act 3.

Smuggler’s Run

Smuggler’s Run is probably the least I’ve played out of all the content that has been released that requires you to register as a CEO. I’m not the greatest plane flying in the game and it seems like it’s bit harder to set up and make money from this.

I’m sure though that if I give it more of a chance, it’ll very similar to my experiences of the Gunrunning and Doomsday Heist missions.

One nice thing I do like about it though is that you have to purchase a hangar in order to do the missions available for Smuggler’s Run and I’ve purchased one at the military base known as Fort Zancudo. I pretty much have protection on the airbase as long as other players don’t also have a hangar there. Unfortunately, there have been times when I’ve spawned there and other players with tanks or other armaments happen to be there also and they try to take me out.

Now just because I have my hangar on the military base doesn’t mean I automatically have full access to everything on that base. I learned that the hard way once, by trying to take one of their jets. The good thing is though is that I’ve 2 of my own personal fighter jets stores at that hangar that I can use anytime. I haven’t used them in a long time though so I should probably spend some time using them in the future.

After you purchase a hangar (and of course register as a CEO), you are now ready to participate in the Air-Freight business which is part of the Free Trade Shipping Company app on the in game computer. You can access this computer in the hangar office and this is how you’ll source and sell cargo.

A setup mission will have to be completed first before you can fully engage in the theft of cargo that can later be sold for profit. The setup mission really wasn’t that difficult and is really the first plane you’ll acquire that can be used in the future should you so choose. I’ll eventually get back to Smuggler’s Run once I’ve fully completed the Doomsday Heist and gotten further in the original CEO activities.

New Business Update Coming to GTA 5 Online

There is a brand new update coming next month to the online portion of GTA 5 and it looks interesting and fun. For those of you who may be tired of getting involved with illegal activities in the game with the things I described above, it looks like you’ll no longer have to worry about that. It appears that there is a legitimate business opportunity you can get involved in that deals with nightclubs.

There’s not too many details at the moment other than certain artists and songs that could be coming to this update. Rockstar promises that there will be more updates soon and this update may be coming sometime in July so stay-tuned. In the meantime, check out the teaser trailer below.