The Kortz Center Heist: the complete guide

The Kortz Center Heist arrived in GTA Online on 14 July 2026 as the centrepiece of the summer update, and quite possibly the last big heist this game gets before GTA 6. It is a repeatable art robbery on Los Santos premier gallery in Pacific Bluffs, run from your own Mansion: scope the building, choose your way in, lift the paintings, then sell the primary or, on eligible weeks, hang it on your own wall.

This guide is the full run, start to finish: the setup steps, every prep as a walkthrough, and the finale as an explicit step sequence including the vault laser grid panel by panel, with the payout picture and the weekly rhythm underneath. Figures are checked against the live game and tested community runs as of early August 2026, and where something is still being verified in-game, the guide says so instead of guessing.

Step 1: get set up

• Buy one of the three Mansions from the Prix Luxury Real Estate site: Tongva Estate at GTA$11,500,000, Vinewood Residence at GTA$12,200,000, or the pick, Richman Villa at GTA$12,800,000, because its location trims the drive to Pacific Bluffs on every single trip
• Add the Art Studio expansion: GTA$4,700,000 full price, GTA$3,700,000 with the Fine Art Collector Tier 3 discount, GTA$2,700,000 with that discount plus active GTA+
• Enter the studio through the Mansion front-door option or Basement Level 2 and watch the introduction: Mr. Faber, his fixer Raf De Angelis, and the forger Yong-Rae, who moves in to counterfeit what you steal
• Register as a CEO and open the Planning Board
• Crew members need none of this: no Mansion, no studio, no fee. One to four players, with one solo limit: a single two-player exhibit room stays shut on your own

Step 2: scope the Kortz Center properly

• Take the scope-out from the board and photograph everything: what you log is literally what you unlock
• Entry options come from the access points you photograph, so walk the whole building
• Each optional prep unlocks only if you photograph its specific point of interest, so a lazy scope locks the best tools away
• A thorough scope puts roughly GTA$2,300,000 to GTA$2,677,500 of secondary artwork on the board in tested runs, and every player carries one bag, so crew size decides how much of it leaves the building
• The intel persists between runs. Scope hard once and you never do the full version again

Step 3: make the four required board choices

• Infiltration Gear: take the Staff Key Card. It opens the Staff Entrance and does not collapse the run if a camera burns you. The alternatives are Tactical Equipment, the Alpha Mail Disguise and the Hazmat Suit
• Unmarked Weapons: take Military, strong enough to recover a blown stealth run. Street and Security exist for purists
• Getaway Vehicle: take the Armored Caracara over the Manchez and the Annihilator Stealth, because armour is what matters when the police are already staged outside
• Equipment: no choice here, the Access Code and the Hacking Device are both required

Step 4: run the preps

Every prep launches from the board or from a call to Raf on your phone, which saves the drive home between jobs. With a decent aircraft the lot is one evening.

• Staff Key Card: clear the marked hacker den outside then in, blow the power box if it blocks the Terrorbyte, take the key-card cloner from inside, drive to the Kortz Center, stay out of the Staff Entrance camera cone, clip the cloner to the keypad and step back while it works
• Military Loadout: at Fort Zancudo, climb the air traffic control tower to the control room, run the hack, drop two floors for the weapon bags, push into the server room, wipe the data, blow the backup drive, and get it all home. A helicopter or an Armored Kuruma makes this painless
• Armored Caracara: start at the Vinewood Canals hack, take the event outfit and vehicle, enter the Arena War event at Maze Bank Arena, drop the driver through the not-quite-bulletproof glass, clear the turret gunner, take the truck and drive it home
• Access Code: clear the shipping yard, blast the container lock to free the drone, fly it from the vantage point through the vent to the code generator, pull the code, then detonate the drone on the backup system
• Hacking Device: break up the IAA meeting, lift the key card, head to the IAA facility, drop the agents outside, kill the generator with an explosive, search the darkened rooms by flashlight for the device, leave through the sewer, take the van, deliver home

Step 5: the optionals worth running

• Guard Shipments, every single time: destroy three armoured vans across the map inside the timer, bring something that flies, and every guard in the building loses their heavy armour and helmet. Play-only, cannot be bought
• Guard Routes if you want the map advantage: open the unmarked cruiser trunk, plant the tracker on the Kortz radio tower, and every guard cone of vision shows on your minimap through the finale. Buyable if you would rather pay
• Glass Cutter for cleaner case access: trace the cutter through the network upload, then raid the safehouse holding it
• Power Drills and EMP Charges are on the board too; we are verifying exactly what each changes in-game before printing the detail rather than repeating guesses

Step 6: the finale, step by step

This sequence runs the recommended kit: Staff Key Card in, Military Loadout carried, Armored Caracara waiting, Guard Shipments done.

• Load your gear and head to the Kortz Center Staff Entrance
• Remove the guard outside quietly, suppressed, before touching the keypad
• Read the camera cycle, then badge in with the Staff Key Card
• Move at a measured pace and only take guards standing alone: an unseen takedown does not trip the alarm, a witnessed one does
• Stun or jam cameras rather than destroying them. Wreck too many and the building notices, backup arrives and suspicion climbs
• Use the key card paths toward the access bay and basement: fewer guards stand between you and the vault on those routes
• Hold your bag: secure the Primary Target before filling up on secondaries, because damage taken bleeds value out of everything you carry
• At the security door, pull the Access Code from your phone, it is saved in the Mansion AI message thread, and enter it
• If stealth dies anywhere along the way, do not reset by reflex: Military weapons plus de-armoured guards make the loud version entirely winnable

Step 7: the vault laser grid, panel by panel

Three wall panels control the corridor, each killing the laser section behind you, and their left-or-right positions shuffle between runs. Switch to first-person before you enter, and remember the two inputs: jump for floor lasers, crouch for the sweeps.

• Panel one, left wall: pass through the X-shaped diagonal pattern slowly. There is no reward for speed here, only alarms
• Panel two, right wall: a floor laser sweeps the approach. Wait for it to drop or jump it on the timing, then hit the panel
• Panel three, left wall, the hardest: wait for a gap in the diagonals, step through and crouch immediately, hold the crouch while the floor sweep passes over you, then stand and thread the second diagonal set to the panel
• Touching any beam sounds the alarm, pulls guards, deals continuous damage and knocks value off the painting itself
• If you do trip it, know this before it costs you: a quick restart does not clear the alarm. The only clean reset is quitting the heist entirely and relaunching from the Planning Board

Step 8: take the painting and get out

• Crack the vault terminal and the secure room opens
• Work the extraction sequence: release the clips, lift the painting off the wall mount, roll the canvas without tearing it, work the frame interaction, seal the case
• Grab the loose artwork and lockboxes near the vault if the bag and the clock allow
• Badge out through the exit door and work back through the museum: quiet alarm status means you can detour past secondaries, a blown one means straight out
• Armour up before the doors, because the police are already staged outside, and sprint for the Caracara
• Stay off the main arteries once roadblocks form, thread side streets to break line of sight, wait the Wanted level out, and deliver the artwork to the buyer

The reference layer: what it pays

• La Derniere Debauche, the mandatory story target, must be sold rather than displayed: GTA$1,925,000 on the first sale of the week, GTA$481,250 on a repeat in the same week, community-tested on Normal
• Rotation examples from tested runs: The Downfall of Rome paid GTA$1,342,000 and I, Fruit GTA$1,372,800 on Hard first sales, while Consumato and I Hear Voices repeat sales landed around GTA$308,000
• Planning fee: the first setup after each weekly reset is free, every additional setup that week costs GTA$100,000, and a paid setup carrying over a Thursday keeps the fee spent while the painting picks up the new week first-sale rate
• Elite Challenge: GTA$50,000 on Normal, GTA$100,000 on Hard, and the Buyer Request bonus for delivering the requested list matches it
• Secondaries: the scoped pool runs GTA$2,300,000 to GTA$2,677,500, one bag per player
• Real totals: first solo runs with secondaries gross roughly GTA$2,000,000 to GTA$2,250,000, and full four-player hauls have been reported around GTA$7,100,000 before the split
• Displaying an eligible painting in your Art Studio pays nothing. It is a flex, not an income
• Advanced Avionics, an optional GTA$1,200,000 studio upgrade, takes the risk out of the helicopter escape in tested Elite routes. Nice, never necessary
• Three fresh paintings rotate onto the board each week, and clearing the Tier 4 Career Progress challenges unlocks seven vehicles free, including the Benefactor LRC GT, the Grotti Cartuccia GT and the armoured Vapid Caracara itself

Finding a crew

Kortz is at its best with four: every bag matters against that secondary pool, the co-op room opens, and the laser corridor is funnier with witnesses. GTA Online has no crossplay, so your crew shares your platform, and that is exactly how the SixCentral Heist Finder works: pick the Kortz Center on the board, one tap to join, and the host gets every gamertag. It runs in our Discord, which opens from your account page, and the online desk lives at sixcentral.co.uk/online.

Scope slowly, prep the honest list, trust first-person in the corridor, and sell on the reset, every week. The Kortz Center is the best-paying appointment in Los Santos right now, and it rewards the crews who treat it like one.