A story has emerged from the murky world of EVE Online, about the CEO of an in-game financial institution who's been pinching a bit of money from the bank's coffers - and then exchanging it for real-world money.

Ricdic had built up a reputation for himself as one of the few players that gamers could trust in the ingame world - and on the outside he was a 27-year-old married father of two, living a quiet life. And before you start with the stereotypical gold-farming accusations, Ricdic is Australian.

The tech worker now seems a tad remorseful, but does offer an explanation for his actions:

"I'm not proud of it at all, that's why I didn't brag about it.

It was a very on-the-spot decision. I decided to skim off the top, you could say, to overcome real-life (difficulties)."

To recap, for those of you who may not have dipped your toes into the spreadsheety goodness that is EVE, there are more than 300,000 subscribers, paying US$15 a month to explore the galaxy, put in some hard work, manipulate the market, and perhaps take in a little rival-killing, if that's the way they roll. In-game money is all managed by a banking system, some of which are player-run, such as EBank - the company which held Ricdic in the position of CEO.

In-game, things are a little different to the real world, even if you ignore the interstellar elements - behaviour which is illegal today is actually encouraged, such as embezzling. That's just what Ricdic did - taking some 200 billion interstellar kredits from the bank's various accounts (roughly $5100 in Australian dollars). So far, so good. Ricdic's behaviour also caused a rush to withdraw kredits from EBank, as gamers feared for their hard-earned in-game finances. This is all providing good, player-oriented gameplay opportunities - something most developers (and gamers) want.

The problem emerged when Ricdic took his 200 billion kredits to a black market site, who then sold them to other players "too lazy" to earn their own kredits. It was these actions, rather than the embezzling itself, that got Ricdic in hot water.

While EVE developer CCP have banned Ricdic from the game, they've otherwise taken a surprisingly unsympathetic approach to the incident, with economics advisor Eyjolfur Gudmundsson observing that:

"We have never seen ourselves as gods who make the rules of social interaction.

You are able to lose the things you have created. That's what makes the world interesting."