The Cayo Perico Heist is very popular because it's extremely lucrative. When playing solo you can typically expect to get a payout of around GTA$ 1,000,000 or more.

Before you begin the Cayo Perico Heist you'll first need to acquire the Kosatka submarine. If you're not sure how to do this, read our article on Everything You Need to Know About the Kosatka Submarine.

1. Get to Cayo Perico

From the main deck of your Kosatka submarine you'll find a Heist Planning Screen. Interact with that while registered as a CEO to initiate the Cayo Perico Heist.

If this is your first time playing this heist it will prompt you to head to the airport. You're in for some drawn-out cut scenes, including a teaser of The Contract with Dr. Dre. You will eventually land at a party on the island of Cayo Perico. You can easily sneak out of the party by paying attention to the timing of the guards at the party entrance.

If you've played through the entire heist at least once you'll instead need to steal a specific airplane to go to the island disguised as a drug smuggler. This is a fairly straight-forward mission with only a few people guarding the plane so it shouldn't take long. It is also timed so don't mess around.

Once you've made it to the island you can begin gathering intel.

2. Gathering Intel

The main thing you need to do once you get to Cayo Perico is head to the communications tower where you'll hack the security cameras to find your primary target.

If you're playing for the first time you'll first be told to make your way to the entrance of El Rubio's compound. You can follow similar steps to do so. Follow the steps below:

  • Take a jeep, or even better a motorcycle. Next locate the Communications Tower circled in the picture above, and make your way there without being seen. This is best done by staying in the wilderness areas or along the edges of the island.
  • Once you find the tower, locate the signal box. It can spawn at any level of the communications tower, including the ground floor, so just keep looking around and climbing higher until you find it.
  • In order to hack the security cameras from the signal box you'll need to complete a mini game. Just make the top number appear on the bottom by connecting each number on the left to one of the symbols on the right. Each different symbol multiplies the number by 1, 2, or 10.
  • Once the security cameras are hacked scroll through the views until you reach the basement view, then pan to find your primary target. Depending on what your primary target is you'll find it in either the safe or the glass case.
  • Next you can look through the other camera views if you want but the only place you might find secondary targets that you can get as a solo player is the office.

3. Additional Scoping

There's a lot more on the island that you can scope out, but most of it won't be necessary for your mission. Below is a breakdown of additional scoping locations.

Secondary Targets

There are secondary target spawn points in various buildings throughout the island. Feel free to scope these out ahead of time to know their exact locations or you can just search for them during the Finale.

Infiltration Points

You will need an infiltration point in order to complete this section of the heist. The best one is the Drainage Tunnel as it doubles as a compound entry point, plus it's the easiest way to complete the finale.

Escape Points

You don't need any escape points. This is because you can simply choose the Kosatka as your escape. However, there are other options as well that you can feel free to scope out.

Compound Entry Points

As mentioned above, you can just use the Drainage Tunnel as your compound entry point. It's by far the best way to complete the Finale.

Points of Interest

These can help aspects of the mission but really they're completely unnecesssary.

And there you have it. As you may have noticed, the Cayo Perico Heist Part 1: Intel can be pretty quick and easy if you know what you're doing. You should be able to complete this in about 10 minutes.