Preparatory tasks for The Cargo Ship Robbery in GTA Online's The Chop Shop DLC include securing bolt cutters, a suitable boat, and flares for signaling, with optional masks, all of which are essential before undertaking the main Planning Work missions.
Tasks are considered one of the major prerequisites of the robbery, except the optional tasks, which are not mandatory.
You can see your tasks laid out on the planning screen. However, you cannot start your tasks from the planning screen. These are available for you to complete in free roam.
When you go to the task location, you will see a green highlighted circle on the ground.
Walk up to the green marker, and you will get an option to interact with it to start the task.
For the Cargo Ship robbery, you have three mandatory and one optional task.
Task 1: Bolt Cutters
In this task, you need to steal the bolt cutters from the marked site. You will see a yellow highlighted area on your minimap. The bolt cutters can be anywhere inside this area.
The most common building with bolt cutters is the long warehouse.
You might not be able to see the bolt cutters at first since it can be quite dark if the mission is at night time. But they are always on a table or a shelf inside the warehouse.
When you get closer to the bolt cutters, they are automatically located and highlighted on the map with a green duffle bag icon.
