The Cargo Ship Robbery: All Preparatory Tasks Guide

Once you grab the bolt cutters, some workers around the area will start to attack you, and you will get a 2-star wanted level.

Lose the cops and deliver the bolt cutters to your Salvage Yard to complete this task.

Task 2: Boat

In this task, you need to steal a boat from a storage facility.

When you get inside the storage facility, you will find a lot of enemies protecting the boats.

Once you get a notification about using one of the pickup trucks to hook onto a trailer carrying a boat, two more enemies will spawn behind you and approach you from the same location you came in from.

Once all the enemies are defeated, get into one of the pickup trucks and back it into one of the trailers carrying the boat. It will automatically hook to the trailer.

When you exit the storage facility, deliver the boat to your Salvage Yard to complete the mission.

The boat is needed to get to the cargo ship during the robbery. However, there is an easier method we will use to get on the cargo ship and also complete one of the bonus challenges. More on it below.

We are only doing this mission as it is a mandatory pre-requirement.

Task 3: Flares

In this task, you need to steal a flare box. For this task, you can get a random location.

You will get a yellow highlighted site, and you're looking for a white flare box, which is somewhere in the middle of the highlighted area.

In the case of the docks (our location), the flare box was in the middle of the highlighted area on a stack of bricks.

If you get the beach as your location, you will find the box resting on the railing of a lifeguard tower.

Once you collect the flares, the surrounding workers will attack you.

Task 4: Masks (Optional)

The masks play zero role in the robbery. They are included only for the sake of just wearing the mask, which has become a part of the meta in GTA Online heists.

However, if you're still interested in purchasing the mask and completing this task, you can head to the Vespucci Beach mask shop.

Purchase any mask set, and it will be registered as completed.

With the initial tasks completed, you are now ready to proceed to the more involved Planning Work missions.