On April 2, the American news website Counter-Strike Dust2.us published an audio recording that captures three ESEA Premier players involved in a discussion to define the outcome of two matches. The recording was released after it was publicly revealed by Commissioner of the Esports Integrity Commission, Ian Smith, that the FBI was also conducting its own investigation into the manipulation of CS: GO results in North America.
The audio, recorded in October 2020, features three players from the Rebirth organization, Sebastian “retchy” Tropiano, Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak and Carson “nosraC” O’Reilly, openly discussing how to subvert the outcome of two of their matches at ESEA Premier League.
The two matches discussed were against Incognito and Russian Canadians. The former was postponed twice before being resolved and the latter resulted in confiscation.
Sources throughout Dexerto’s own investigation confirmed that these decisions around those matches were made after players became aware of the possibility of the recording existing and wanted to ensure that no one was monitoring the activity around those matches.
ESIC is currently investigating claims for match-fixing at ESEA Premier.
The recording also incriminates two of the Russian-Canadian players, Alex “vek” Voynov and David “J0LZ” Jolin, as having agreed to participate in the scheme.
In the recording, Tropiano states that Voynov, the team leader in the game, agreed to use “on the radar” to guarantee the result of the match. “On the radar” refers to a popular method that game brokers use to broadcast their games through programs like Discord to their opponents.
This allows teams to have an advantage if they want to win or make their defeats look more natural, with “misinterpretations” calculated to overshadow the fraudulent nature of the game. Tropiano says that, in exchange for his cooperation, he will share the profits of some Bitcoin betting sites.
Throughout our own investigation, Dexerto interviewed Voynov about the allegations and he categorically denied them. He also launched a vague Twitlonger in February, where he called “conjecture” any suggestion that he was involved. A file of this statement can be found here: https://archive.is/vr9Zu
Dexerto also interviewed Jolin and he denied having made any deal with Tropiano.
vek is one of the players accused of participating.
The complete transcript of the recording is as follows:
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: No, it would be suspicious if you played Incognito as the full game, but if you went in half, it would look real. Or not even halfway through the game while it’s going on, you just go in, “my internet is back”, we get off the server and it looks normal.
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: I am not doing this bro.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: As long as shrek [Spenser “Shrek” Adams] play four or five rounds, it will be fine.
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: and the fact that you haven’t even said anything about the Russian-Canadian game, that’s even more fucked up, but …
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: What?
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: What do you mean what? You didn’t say anything about it.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: What do you mean?
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak Okay, now you’re acting like an idiot.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: No, I’m serious, what are you talking about?
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: What do you mean? I was talking yesterday about winning a match so that we can play Mythic in the playoffs, you didn’t say anything. Now, today you just joined TeamSpeak and said, “Yes, we are going to lose the game”. Like what? * scoffs * what do you mean?
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: We have been planning to lose this game for the past five days; makes more sense in all CDM games. They need this win, we don’t need the win, and with their IGL on the radar and you off the server, it looks real guaranteed.
Carson “nosraC” O’Reilly: I don’t know if Vek will agree with the radar.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: He does, he agrees with the radar. With the proviso to allow him to use two Bitcoin sites and I will split the profits from those two sites. And J0LZ is fine with that too. And they don’t … I told them there’s no way to know drums or Saturn, it needs to look like a legitimate tryhard game.
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: Okay, whatever. But I’m not setting up the Incognito game, I told you.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: I know, I don’t think you should, you should participate while Shrek is playing, like three rounds inside.
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: No laughs *
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: No, the main thing is that if you show six people on HLTV, it will be very good.
Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak: Well, you can set it up or something, I don’t know.
Sebastian “sick” Tropiano: I will restart to [ESEA Pro] customer, wait.
The recording was sent to ESEA administrators shortly after it was captured and was then passed on to ESIC, which already had an investigation underway.
This recording corroborated other evidence that had already been discovered by the ESIC investigation. Months later, and with other lines of investigation being investigated, the release of the recording was released.
I will definitely bring you a much more detailed report on earnings manipulation in the coming weeks.