ICTs and leapfrogging development

The heist of the 21st century

Now here's an interesting development (in Icelandic). A player in the game Eve Online, which has a very economical bent, opened a bank and convinced players that they would receive interest on their virtual savings with the bank. After a few months the banker stole all of the money and took off. The amount stolen is 790 billion ISK (the currency in the game - happens to be the international abbreviation for the Icelandic Krona as well - needless to say the game is made by Icelandic company CCP), a very sizable sum of virtual cash.

I recently posted a lengthy blurb about globalization where I wrote about Scholte's notion of globalization as "supraterritoriality" and how it remains tied to traditional territoriality. But, I also suggested that this may be changing as we see more and more virtual valuables being exchanged. The interesting thing about the Eve Online case is that ISK's and other virtual valuables are exchanged in the real world. It has been estimated that the money stolen in the game may be worth up to 12 million real ISK (ca. US$175,000). Will the fraudulent banker try to cash in on the crime in the real world or will he/she keep the cash in its more valuable virtual form? If the latter, is there anything territorial about this supraterritoriality?

Update: I guess this news has been circulating on the web for a few days. For versions in english - Slashdot has something on it, as does ArsTechnica.