FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Games

RuneScape Robberies

Kids are sticking each other up at gunpoint for virtual world cash.

We learn this weekend that a 19-year-old college student is looking at 15 years in jail after robbing one of his classmates at gunpoint. He wasn’t after money or jewels or anything like that, though. Humza Bajwa just wanted more “magic” coins for his adventures in the medieval fantasy online game “RuneScape.” Of course, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

It all started out innocently enough. Bajwa arranged a deal with fellow gamer Jonathan Dokler to buy nearly 5 billion coins for $3,300 in real cash and asked for a face-to-face meeting to make the switch. Dokler sent his friend David Emani to meet Bajwa to a Fordham University library on July 11, but worried that the money Bajwa brought to the deal looked fake. Bajwa backed out of the deal at the last minute, and asked Emani to meet the next night in a classroom. When it came time to do the deal, Emani called Bajwa out on his envelope of fake cash. Bajwa proceeded to pull out an airgun that looked like a real gun and demand that Emani finish the deal.

“I whispered, ‘Take it easy, man. No need for that gun,’ ” Emani told the New York Post. “I couldn’t believe I was about to get shot over RuneScape! I was so scared I was about to die.” With a gun to his head, Emani called Dokler, who transferred the magic coins to Bajwa. (A cursory Facebook search yielded a profile page for a Humza Bajwa with an assault weapon profile pic.)

Read the rest over at Motherboard.