With our solo guide for the Cayo Perico Heist in GTA Online, you can rock the finale and secure valuable loot. The approach is even easy on “Hard” and suitable for beginners. We also give you tips for the heist.
What kind of guide is this? The Cayo Perico Heist has been in the game since December 2020 and is still the best method to earn a lot of money quickly in 2024. There are various approaches that affect the time needed.
In this guide, we show you a method to rob the main target, steal a few additional valuables, and run the finale in 7 minutes. This nets you about 1.4 million GTA dollars and is one of the easiest tasks for solo players. This way, you can easily earn a lot of money solo.
Keep in mind that there are many ways to rob El Rubio. Here we show you one that works very well for us and that we have successfully completed more than 100 times. It works without triggering an alarm.
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Preparations – What missions are needed?
Before you can start the heist, you need to go to the planning screen in your Kosatka and make various preparations. The planning on the screen is divided into “Information”, “Equipment”, and “Finale”.
Information: If you’re playing the heist for the first time, it’s recommended to get to know the island completely and find all the different infiltration points. However, for our guide, only the sewer is important as an infiltration point.
We have also scoped out the escape points, but only one is important in the guide. We take the main dock. We also know all the access points to the estate – but in the guide, we rely on the sewers here as well. There is a trick for scouting Cayo Perico. Keep in mind that you only need to scout the different points once and then use them again in future heists.
You can scout anything interesting as you like. However, it’s not important for this approach.
Equipment: Suitable approach vehicles include the Kosatka and the Longfin. The Longfin is better suited if you want to take secondary loot like cash or cocaine at the docks or the runway. We describe the approach with the Kosatka in our guide, so we recommend that you take it as well. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal preference.
You definitely need the cutting torch as equipment to cut through the grate of the sewage tunnel and small locks in El Rubio’s vault. The fingerprint scanner is necessary to get into the basement (and out again) quickly. You will also need the plasma cutter to steal the main target. The cutting charge is optional and not required.
For the arsenal, we choose Aggressor. However, this also depends on your taste. Usually, you will take down two to four guards. It’s important that you can draw your weapons quickly and that they work with suppressors.
Tip: You don’t need to buy the suppressors. If you choose the nighttime approach, you will receive them automatically and save 5,000 GTA dollars.
Sabotage missions are not needed for this approach at all.
Summary of preparation:
- Approach vehicle: Kosatka
- Equipment: Plasma cutter, fingerprint scanner, cutting torch
- Weapon arsenal: Aggressor
- Sabotage: None necessary
Finale of Cayo Perico – Make your choices and start
After preparations, you can start the job alone from the planning screen. Buying armor for $500 is not necessary, but it can be taken if you feel uncertain.
Choices:
- Approach vehicle: Kosatka
- Infiltration point: Sewage tunnel
- Access to the estate: Sewage tunnel
- Escape point: Main dock
- Time of day: Night
- Weapon arsenal: Aggressor (purchase of suppressors not necessary)
- Hire support crew? No
Now you can start the job.
Start the heist – Easy route for a quick finale
This is what to do next: After starting the heist, your loyal Pavel will bring you to the vicinity of the sewage tunnel with the submarine. You need to swim straight for about 30 seconds and then you will arrive at the marked yellow grate. Go directly to the grate and select the option to cut it open with the cutting torch. Cut all the green marked bars and you will be in the tunnel.
Swim through the tunnel to the end and then surface. Confirm the prompt to enter El Rubio’s estate. For the optimal route, you mustn’t lose any time now.
The route to the loot: After you surface from the tunnel, a short cutscene will play. Immediately turn around, walk up the stairs, and go across the area as shown in the graphic. If you don’t dawdle, you can sprint completely to the next point without being disturbed by guards.
Before the big stairs, stop for a moment and wait until the guard goes to the right (first red X on the route graphic). Then run up the stairs and left around the building. Once at the back, sneak up and shoot the guard standing there (second red X on the route graphic). With a bit of luck, the guard will drop a gate key that will be important later.
After the kill, continue up the stairs. You will encounter a guard coming down the stairs. Take him out silently on the top step with a blow to the face with your weapon (third red X on the route graphic). There’s also a chance that the guard drops a gate key. Make sure to pick it up.
Now you have silently arrived in El Rubio’s office and have already passed the most stressful part of the heist finale. In the office, you will find a keycard on his desk, which is not of interest to solo players. Next to the desk is a wall with many pictures – that’s his hidden safe. Open it and grab the cash (and a pistol) from it.
Now look around the office. Up to two paintings can hang on the walls that you can steal. Grab them if available.
Office looted? Good. Now comes one of the easiest exercises: The fingerprint scanner. You will find it next to the elevator that leads to the basement.
Simple trick for the fingerprint scanner at Cayo Perico
The scanner may seem confusing at first glance, but it’s solved with a trick in under a minute.
- First, look for the upper end of the fingerprint in the top row – it’s very easy to identify in every pattern. We call it “0”
- In the second row, again find the same upper part 0, and then press once to the right. So 0 + 1 (once to the right)
- In the third row, again find the upper part 0, and press twice to the right. So 0 + 2
- In the fourth row, again look for 0 and then press three times to the right, 0 + 3
- In the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth rows, as in the examples above, add one more press to the right each time
- Once you memorize the system, you can solve the codes in just a few seconds
Steal the main target
Once you arrive in the basement with the elevator, proceed straight ahead and cut the chains locking the door with the cutting torch.
Now use the plasma cutter to free the main target from the display case. Be careful not to overheat it, or it will cost you more time.
Escape from Cayo Perico in the heist – The easiest escape
You now have two escape options:
- Through the gates in the basement after another fingerprint scanner (but only two tests)
- Back through the office
Option 1: The escape through the basement is only advisable if you have picked up a gate key from one of the two guards you took out on the way to the office (or you found the key in Los Santos). Go to the fingerprint sensor in the basement, solve the two puzzles using the method mentioned above, and turn right after the scanner. Open the gate.
Now climb to the right along the wall and then directly left over the small staircase. Now slowly approach the exit gate and either shoot the patrol there or wait briefly in the garden until they leave. Then approach the gate and confirm that you want to get out.
Option 2: If you do not have a gate key, ride the elevator back up to El Rubio’s office. Go out through the entrance door and run down the stairs that you previously came up. At the corner where you shot the stationary guard (below), turn right. Wait for the patrol that marches to the left in front of the building. Shoot them or wait until they are standing in the hallway.
Then jump straight over the railing, then go left into the garden and you can already see the exit gate. Now slowly approach the exit gate and either shoot the patrol there or wait briefly in the garden until they leave. Then approach the gate and confirm that you want to get out.
The last meters in the finale: Since we could solve everything in stealth, we expect hardly any resistance in the final meters. Run straight ahead from the gate and take down the guard waiting by the motorcycle. Grab the motorcycle and ride close to the wall along El Rubio’s area or follow the path and take down the guard at the helicopter as well.
Now jump with the motorcycle, as marked in the screenshot, from the island into the water. From now on, the helicopter will follow you, but it does not pose a threat if you dive.
Just keep swimming south and ignore the yellow mark at the main docks. After about half a minute of swimming, you will have escaped and the cutscene will start in which you are handed the money.
Depending on what the main target was and how many paintings and cash you could steal from the office, you should receive between 630,000 and 2 million GTA dollars from the heist.
If you spend more time and go to the docks or runway after robbing the main target to steal valuable goods like cocaine, you can further maximize your haul. However, this takes more time and is riskier.
With this guide, we want to show you how to easily and almost risk-free steal your main target and a few paintings from El Rubio.
Even as a beginner, this is not a problem. Since the heist is so quick, you can complete it multiple times a day.
Tip: After the heist, it takes about 8 to 10 minutes for Pavel to call you and explain that you can start preparing for the new heist. Implement this quickly and visit Pavel in the Kosatka in a timely manner to start a new heist on the planning screen.
This will automatically set the difficulty to “Hard,” and you will get more loot. The hard mode should not pose any significant difficulty for you, so you should definitely take advantage of it with its loot bonus. However, you only have one game day in GTA Online to start the heist, otherwise you will start the next Cayo Perico heist on “normal”.
