Keywords
"Sales" - any type of sale mission from CEO businesses (crates), Motorcycle Club (MC) businesses (coke, cash, meth, weed), Gunrunning (bunkers), Smuggler's Run (air freight), and After Hours (nightclub goods). VIP work and MC contracts are also considered sales.
"Cartel Staff" - include Leaders, Supervisors, and Coordinators. Their names are visible on the right hand side of Discord, at the top of the list.
"Official Sessions" - include SockOtter, TerminalBunny and CheddarMouse.
Important Links
Full List of Banned Crews and Banned Members
This rule applies to Cartel members in every public session of GTA Online and is absolute. It does not apply to invite-only, crew-only, friend-only sessions, or any session in which Sales cannot be done. This includes deathmatches, adversary, and game modes.
Proximity mine notice
Please avoid all use of proximity mines (hand-thrown and vehicle-dropped) in our sessions. There is never an absolute need to use them, and they are extremely prone to accidents, including destroyed Sale Vehicles.
If you drop a proximity mine by accident, notify anyone nearby and destroy it as soon as it is safe to do so.
Rule 1 exceptions:
1. The PvP activity has been arranged and consented by everyone involved, and you have announced your intention to everyone in the Lobby via in-game text chat.
2. For minor nuisances (running down with cars, throwing tear gas, etc. but no actual deaths), you know the person and know they won't mind .
3. You need to defend yourself or others, or are otherwise detecting a clear and unmistakable threat, such as:
If a non-Cartel player begins a CEO/MC/Gunrunning Sale before they are kicked from the session, let them finish the Sale peacefully so long as they are doing it in a reasonable amount of time. GTA Cartel never attack Sales.
Even if you intend to PvP by one of the above exceptions, please declare this to the lobby beforehand.
If you want some PvP action, consider starting an invite only / friends only / crew only lobby, where Sales and Sourcing cannot be done. Cartel PvP rules don't apply in these sessions.
If you wish to participate in PvP activities in non-Cartel public lobbies, you must:
These steps are important as they will significantly reduce the chances that you will be automatically matched into sessions containing GTA Cartel members. This also severs all links between you and Cartel. Some groups and individuals have blamed GTA Cartel for actions of one individual in the past.
Don't be part of any official Rockstar crews such as IGN, and remove friends who are part of the following crews. This includes both active and secondary crews.
Tip: These crews tags can easily be spotted in Social Club by their pointy left-side tag. Every 3-letter crew is included, so they are easy to spot.
But why?
These crews have literally millions of members (IGN is largest with over 4.5 million) and R* Matchmaking likes to put people in the same sessions as their crewmates.
One IGN in a session can quickly become three, then five, then ten (sometimes in under five minutes). This means we lose control of the session and it becomes dangerous to remain there. Sales become impossible, and then there's no point in Cartel players sticking around.
How do I find my friends in these crews?
Watch this GIF to view the crews your friends belong to. The only way this can be viewed is in-game.
The Holy Link shows all crews your friends are a part of, including secondaries. It does not tell you which friends are in which crews, unfortunately. You will need to check friends one-by-one to delete the secondary members.
Keeping smaller friend lists makes cleaning secondaries much simpler. Cartel staff may request a screenshot of this "Holy Link" as part of your application, or during your membership. They need to see the top few rows of crews and your Social Club ID in the top corner.
If you choose to keep your current crew as your Active Crew, you will need to able to vouch that they will be friendly towards us if they are accidentally matched into our session (the same applies to your friends, too). You could be held responsible for any problems they may cause, so be very careful in which crews you are in and which friends you keep.
You need to delete trolls, people you don't know well enough to vouch for, and especially delete anyone who is in a generic crew such as IGN. An application with generic crew friends will be rejected until these friends are deleted or have left the problem crews. You will also have to wait on a Leader or Supervisor re-evaluating your application.
Additional banned crews:
All crews trying to impersonate us are considered banned crews. A full list of crews trying to impersonate us is here.
Banned Players:
We do not allow certain players to be on any GTA Cartel Member's friend lists. This is due to past attempts at griefing, trolling or severely undermining the core values of the crew. The full list of banned players is here.
What's the point in this rule?
This is a very important rule because your friends could be matched into our sessions automatically through you. Even if your friend is friendly, their friends and crewmates could be matched into our sessions, and not all of them will be friendly. Any non-Cartel friends you decide to keep will be your responsibility. Remember that even that one guy who hasn't logged into GTA in months could return one day and compromise our friendly session.
Vouching for your non-SAFE friends to temporarily play in our Community Sessions (never in the Official Sessions) is something the Cartel allows, but it is not encouraged. You shouldn't vouch for a friend if they are not interested in applying and joining us fully. The full vouching criteria are part of the main rules page.
Maybe you want to play in Cartel sessions but you really love your custom crew-colour T-shirt. Maybe the Cartel logo doesn't look as good on your sick, tuned-up muscle cars as your homemade one.
If you want to keep using your custom crew colours and logos in our sessions, that's okay - you can start what's known as an Unofficial Cartel Crew. There are some special requirements for an unofficial crew to follow:
DISCORD
Participation on our Discord server is absolutely mandatory, so please make sure your nickname on our Discord server matches your Rockstar Social Club ID exactly at all times. If you are not found on our Discord server, you will be removed from the crew.
On Discord you must keep up to date with posts in the #announcements channel.
It's extremely important for all Cartel members to pay close attention to Discord if we want to keep our sessions safe and friendly. While playing in a SAFE session, you must be able to see the #cheddarmouse, #sockotter, #terminalbunny, or #community channel, depending on the session you are in. You must be ready and able to respond to events occurring on Discord at any time while in GTA Online.
If a Cartel Staff member suspects people in-game are not paying attention to Discord (missing votekicks, ignoring randoms and risking the session), there may be an event called a check-in. If a check-in is launched, at least one notification will be posted in the appropriate Discord channel (#cheddarmouse, #sockotter, or #terminalbunny) and you will see the normally invisible #check-in channel. Full instructions on what to do will be visible in this channel, and you must respond within 15 minutes or you will have missed the check-in. Multiple missed check-ins will result in being removed from the crew. The check-in procedure is also elaborated on our Guides and FAQ page.
Note: Setting yourself to "do not disturb" mode on Discord will give no audio for notifications.
Never publicly talk about any GTA Online glitches, mods or exploits
We do not break any Rockstar Terms & Conditions in the way we operate. Generally, Cartel members dislike mods, exploits and rule-breaking behaviour. We want to play the game smart, but not by cheating the system.
Absolutely anything external to GTA (hardware or software) which affects the way GTA Online operates can be considered an "external tool" in this context and you should not discuss them on our Discord. This includes:
This also includes glitches and RP/GTA$ related game bugs.
Posting this kind of information anywhere that Rockstar could potentially see can be counted as violating this rule.
What you say to others regarding these things privately (anything said in-game or via Social Club is not private) is your business, and we take no involvement.
Important Note: This Rule is in addition to Rule 1, which could also violate Rockstar's rules. If you are upset with the actions of another member, please report them to us before you consider a report to Rockstar, in case we are able to resolve it more thoroughly without potentially bringing the entire crew under suspicion for their actions.
Downloading Discord Instructions:
Changing your Discord nickname:
In the app, on the left hand side, right-click on the GTA Cartel Logo, and select Change Nickname - this will not affect your nickname in other Discord servers.
Alternately, you can use the command /nick and your nickname in the #introduce_yourself or #applicant_support channels to change your server nickname.