Thomas Kingston is a professional grifter and the leading figure of a grifter crew consisting of him, Maria Vinogradova, and Cesar Álvarez. He profits himself from exploiting damnedest money-making opportunities for the last twenty years.
Backstory[]
Thomas was born and grew up in Phyllis. While most of Thomas’ backstories are apocryphal, it is known that he held a genuine bachelor degree in Libertarian Economic from the Founding Fathers University and had a short entrepreneurial career before becoming a conman.
In a city with a high crime rate, Thomas refrained himself from violence and preferred to use his wits. He began by selling cheap watches, then he mastered a complicated sleight-of-hand movements for pickpocketing, and then he experimented with rigged backdoor card games. He was arrested and investigated repeatedly, first in 2006, for white collar frauds. He always escaped the charges due to lack of evidences.
Starting from 2010, Thomas fleshed out his midas touch for long games. A year later during a score in a Phyllis hotel, he crossed path with three fellow conmen: Cyrus Forsell, Melvin Strong, and Jan Daniels; a team of seasoned grifters. Although the score was a bust for all, Melvin admired Thomas' potential and recruited him to complete a quartet. The four specialized themselves in more daring cons across many Northeast cities, including Claudius and Liberty. As gentleman thieves, they operated under strict codes: keep the mark alive, do not get distracted by anything else including family and friends, only hire female grifters as extras because they would be a temptation in the long run, and do not trust their "blue-collar" counterpart who relied on violences. Thomas accepted that his life would never be normal again.
Melvin was the team’s mastermind until he retired in Christmas 2014. He passed the leader's baton to Cyrus, who turned out to be not as efficient as his predecessor. He counted too much on spontaneous decisions, often encountering problem mid-way as he hit marks without making plan beforehand. Thomas and Jan were frequently forced to cover his mistakes.
Seven months ago, the team con Phyllis Mob with the wire that they prepared overnight, stealing $300,000 from a capo’s pocket. What they did not anticipate was the capo's ruthlessness when someone screwed with him. The mob pinned their criminal records to the team and effectively disintegrated them. Cyrus disappeared and was believed to have been killed. Jan escaped to Tequesta. Thomas traversed the East Coast, from Smithsonia DC to the Ozarks, while running solo cons, succeeding and failing throughout his journey. Jan kept his contact with him through colorful postcards with codes.
Light & Shadow (2017-2018)[]
Chapter I & II (March-June 2017)[]
Thomas in 2017
After a three-months sentence for false representation in Argonaut, Jan picked Thomas up and brought him to Vice City. Jan had abandoned the long con game and opted to run a tourist pickpockets network underneath a legal tourism agency called Sparrow. Most recently, however, his business was extorted by Horacio "The Panamanian" Vera, a drug dealer whose ambition is becoming big and independent from the Céntricio Cartel. Jan requested Thomas' assistance to get Horacio out of his way. Thomas was initially skeptical about crossing another dangerous criminal, but he later accepted the opportunity to visit Vice City, a fresh ground where he could finally settle permanently.
Disguised as a financial consultant, Thomas took advantage of Horacio's interest in business investments and money laundering. Thomas influenced Horacio into expanding Sparrow to Gleason Beach, laundering his drug income through corrupt VCPD detectives, and investing in an art gallery by Gloria Delaney. Although Horacio was impressed by Thomas' positive contributions, Horacio enlisted his henchman, Nahuel ”Puma” Morgado, to watch his back, which made it difficult for Thomas to turn against the drug lord wannabe. Thomas also became familiar with Cesar Álvarez, who accompanied his crooked cop friends to convert Horacio's dirty cash.
Thomas schemed to expose Gloria behind the scene. Horacio did not know that her art gallery was a fraudulent business that sold amateurish paintings. Such deception would also expose Horacio's involvment as an investor, force him to wire his wealth abroad, and allow Thomas to loot it when Horacio was arrested. Before Thomas could start, Puma sensed the masterplan and confronted Thomas, warning him to not betray his boss. Thomas found that Puma was immune to all the sweet talks and decided to kill him. Thomas realized that Vice City worked differently. What Jan nicknamed as the "Deceiving Paradise" was more unforgiving and violent than the East Coast. Thomas seeked Jan's help, but his old partner declined, fearing that they would repeat the "Phyllis Mob Con" mistake.
Thomas lied that the Céntricio Cartel was responsible for Puma's death. As a payback, Horacio planned to secure a secret alliance with Pierre Labissiere, a Haitian politician who sponsored Nelson "Black Caesar" Dulysee of a S4S faction, one of the cartel's fiercest enemy. Unaware to him, this was yet another trap Thomas had set up.
"A Voyage To Remember" (June 2017)[]
Horacio sent Thomas to meet Labissiere and Dulysee in Sargasso Witch cruise ship. Alongside him was Leandro Gomez, another Horacio's loyal muscle to replace Puma.
During the meeting with Labissiere in the dining room at night, Cesar unexpectedly joined the table with Maria Vinogradova (who Thomas did not know yet). Thomas and Cesar quickly recognized each other and thought that they were a foil to their agenda. Thomas was also half-captivated by Maria's beauty and half-concious that she was a diversion. The conman wanted to check what Cesar exactly doing, but Leandro cautioned him to stay focus, so Thomas made use of Leandro's coke addiction to paralyze him while Thomas went to confront Cesar.
Thomas found Maria instead, who offered to spill Cesar's intention in the deck outside. Quickly noticing that something was off, Thomas turned around before Cesar could sway his crowbar. He attacked Cesar back, but was overpowered when Maria shot his right legs. In an agonizing pain, Thomas was about to be pushed by Cesar into the deep ocean, but before it happened, a Labissiere henchman walked in, and Maria was forced to kill him. Their disguises had been blown.
As a last-ditch effort to save himself, Thomas convinced Maria and Cesar that he had a getaway plan: the lifeboat nearby. He knew how to drive it. The trio sailed away to the Central Vizcaya Bay, hijacked a Marquis, and hide in Key Vizcayo.
Chapter III (June-July 2017)[]
After the smooth escapade, Thomas' life was left hanging again in Maria and Cesar's hands. Thomas knew that his failure had certainly cut his binding ties with Horacio. With nothing to lose, Thomas admitted his true grifter nature and promised to solve the problems he had generated. Maria and Cesar collectively agreed to coerce Thomas into conning their horrible bosses: Artemiy Yelagin, the paranoid oligarch who assigned Maria to increasingly risky jobs; and Thiago Alarcón, the flashy lawyer who recently felt under scrutiny and planned to use Cesar as his scapegoat.
The trio claimed a vacant apartment room in Key Vizcayo as their temporary base. While devising the cons, Thomas learned that Maria and Cesar were not exactly a dynamic duo: they secretly vied for control over the team. They approached Thomas separately on various occassions to conquer his heart. He was nearly consumed to their influences, but not only he resisted, he saw through Maria and Cesar's potentials. They could be his perfect new long-term partners. With that, Thomas abandoned his old codes, believing they were obsolete in Vice City.
Despite the hurdles and trust issues, the trio successfully conned Artemiy and Thiago to their demise. Maria and Cesar lost their jobs, so Thomas took the moment to offer them a permanent partnership. He promised more profitable scores worth millions if they stay together, starting with Horacio. They hesitated to "start a band" immediately, but agreed to thank Thomas' "mastermind service" by hitting his ex-employer.
Thomas set up the scam that would exploit Horacio's ambition. The plan was to rope him with a chance to expand his drug empire beyond Vice City by investing in a fictional asset in the Bahamas. Horacio's empire fell; gangs and alphabet agencies swarmed around the ruins. The trio only managed to recover $300,000, one hundred thousand for each. Jan lost Sparrow to a fire mid-con. Thomas reconciled with Jan and aided him half of his cut. Instead of rebuilding his business, Jan determined to focus preserving his pickpocket crew.
The greater triumph, however, was how the rush, reward, and satisfaction convinced Maria and Cesar to stick with Thomas.
Chapter IV (July-September 2017)[]
Within the next six weeks, Thomas, Maria, and Cesar conducted more profit-driven long cons. They targetted rich, powerful, and immoral marks; whilst avoiding direct interference with major underworld gang figures who screamed death sentences. Three more victims were added into the list: low-rank African-American gangster whose power loomed over a record label, Deshea Marshall; eccentric Armenian construction mogul, Ruben Kocharyan; and greedy stock predator, Irving Belfort. While they were inclined to operate independently, there was also one rare occassion where a trusted client employed them. It was Yusuf Amir, an Emirati real-estate developer who wished to crosscheck the loyalty of his two subordinates: Walid and Talia.
The trio's growing reputation caught the attention of a self-proclaimed, secretive "griftbuster" task force, made up of FIB agent Piero Buenaventura, VDIB Economic Crime detective Sienna Raycroft, and former conman turned police consultant named Edgar "Zanzibar" Zuáznabar. Sienna and Edgar had a track record of cracking high-profile white-collar cases in the last two years. Piero joined most recently, and was involved in dismantling Jan's pickpocket gang. Edgar, posing as an active senior conman, was dispatched to regularly talk with the trio. In their conversations, he alerted them about the "griftbusters". Thomas was flattered, taking Edgar's warning as a call to prove himself. Edgar also tried to crack their next moves, but figured that the trio always kept their cards close to their chest. Even when they hired extra player(s) in their scores, they outrightly refused to show them the full blueprint.
Cesar warned Thomas that he had heard about these "griftbusters" and believed they were simply untouchable, but Thomas' ego seemingly got the better of him. Another reason why Thomas was motivated to strike them was his emotional connection with Jan, who was now imprisoned in FCI Vice off the city. Jan advised Thomas to move on from him, restating Melvin Strong's message that a grifter cannot have something else to walk away from in a second. His two companies faced the same issue at the same time: Maria was entangled deeper into the Kirikov Bratva's politics, while Cesar maintained his close ties with his sister Gabriela, and police colleague Freddie Newman. It was difficult for them to sacrifice their current lives for the sake of a full commitment.
Edgar suggested Piero and Sienna to play slow against the trio. However, Piero pushed Sienna to reject Edgar's idea and picked his potent method: blackmail the trio into doing their bidding and apprehend them during the act. After entrapping the trio with a staged con, Piero and Sienna instructed Thomas and Cesar to retrieve evidences from the VCPD Headquarter, while they kept Maria locked up until the job was accomplished. Cesar did not buy the officers' promises, and Thomas, not wanting to leave Maria behind, devised a scheme with her friend, Solo Bradley, that not just essentially fulfilled the request, but also released Maria and dominoed to Piero and Sienna's arrest.
Meanwhile, Edgar's true allegiance remained a secret. He now joined force with Piero and Sienna's sole replacement, a bright VDIB detective named Wayne Rhodes. Unlike his predecessors, Wayne determined to counter the trio's "long game" with their own "long game", just as Edgar had proposed.
Chapter V (October-November 2017)[]
Three weeks passed and two more cons settled. The Vice City's white-collar underworld layer had heard of their milestones, but very few people knew their exact identities as they hid in the shadow away from limelight. The status was both beneficial and detrimental. They created a new network with various fences, forgers, and fellow grifters. However, they also made enemies, including another bands of thieves: one was a street heist crew ran by expert cracksman, Omari Preston; the other one was a gunman-wheelman duo from Los Santos.
At this point, Maria, motivated by the great length her two companions did to her, had ended her full-fledged membership with the Bratva and dedicated her life competely to the grifter team. Cesar had also forgone his ties with Freddie and Gabriela. For the latter, he followed Thomas' idea of marrying Maria legally, so Cesar could leave Gabriela peacefully (by saying that he started a new life), and Maria could secure her permanent residential status in five years. However, Thomas insisted on breaking out Jan one day.
The trio faced their first defeat after a hot winning streak. Their latest mark, a Macau merchant and Mexican Cartel associate, Mr. Zheng, uncovered their act after bugging their "big store". He kidnapped Thomas after his regular visitation to FCI Vice and burried him alive. From inside his coffin, Thomas shared Maria and Cesar his GPS location in Ventura Key. The two saved Thomas in time after fending off Zheng's goons who guarded the burial spot. The traumatizing event taught Thomas the hard truth of Jan's advice. After sending a final letter, he never visited the old friend again.
Meanwhile, Irving Belfort was mentally devastated by the previous con and was eager for revenge. He recruited Walid, Ruben, and an industrialist rival of him named Wyatt Duggan, the trio's last victim before Mr. Zheng. Having researched the basics of confidence trick, Irving planned to use a socialite friend of him, Serena Van Der Bijl, as a bait who would raise the trio's convincer money absurdly high to bankrupt them. However, while Wyatt was undeniably pissed by the trio's cunning game, he would rather see Irving suffer again than smiling victoriously. Wyatt leaked the whole plan to Thomas and joined his cause.
Around this time as well, Edgar slowly bonded with the trio as their source of underworld information. After straightening up all the aforementioned complications, Thomas was ready for a fresh target: stealing from the Atlantic Racino's mob-affiliated management. As the approach required an elderly figure, Edgar was invited to participate for the first time. Wayne saw it as a golden opportunity to "insert" Edgar as the crew's fourth member. Although the trio unanomiously agreed to not integrate Edgar permanently, he earned their immense respect, particularly since his experience helped them completing the con. They valued him as a mentor-esque figure who would review their plans if necessary.
Chapter VI (December 2017 - January 2018)[]
Edgar assisted the trio in two more capers while secretly wearing a wire. Wayne was confident of proceeding to the next phase: divide them from the inside. From their surveillance, the griftbusters learned that Cesar was currently the most vulnerable component. He slowly felt to be sidelined by Thomas and Maria, who mutually attracted toward each other. Not to mention that his sham marriage with Maria was a mere gimmick to benefit her and drive him away from Gabriela. He wished to depart, but stalled the decision because he did not know where to head afterwards.
Wayne snatched Cesar during one con and presented him the deal: hand over Thomas and Maria, and he would be free of charge, be pardoned from his crimes in VCPD, and have the opportunity to join the griftbusters. Cesar was familiar with the game, but Wayne assured that he was more trustworthy than Piero and Sienna. He had limited time until the VDIB ambushed the con's climatic stage. Cesar reluctantly considered the offer, while suspecting that a mole had informed Wayne. Edgar simultaneously scattered fake clues, misdirecting him into deducing that Maria was the traitor.
Exhausted, Thomas declared one last simpler game before a vacation break. The mark was Felipe Da Silva, a spoiled socialite son of a Brazilian export/import company CEO named Francis. Felipe was desperate to impress his father, which the trio exploited by offering him a solution to his father's dilemma: figuring how to smuggle his client's cocaine into Vice City.
What seemed to be a straightforward caper turned convoluted. Felipe was indebted with vicious loan shark Bernardo Ferreira, and Francis' client turned out to be one of most notorious narcotrafficker in the Caribbean, Juan "El Rubio" Strickler. Both Bernardo and El Rubio knew they were grifters, and coerced them into giving the money back to them. Thomas struggled to push forward the con, but Edgar provided a clever solution where he acted as the scheme's inside man. Thomas trusted Edgar and followed his another advice to prepare fake IDs for them all in case the con fell apart. Thomas neglected Maria and Cesar's feedbacks in the process, causing a rift as the two became concerned of Thomas' state of mind.
Cesar eventually choosed to side with Thomas, but not without bailing Maria out. After a briefing in their Key Vizcayo base, Edgar left to the exchange with Felipe, while the trio stayed as Cesar had something urgent to say. Cesar warned Thomas that the deal was a trap, and that Maria had played with his emotion while ratting the grifters out. The talk escalated into a heated Mexican standoff. Thomas was torn between who he should trust, until the conversation switched topic about Edgar. They realized Edgar might have conned them all himself.
Thomas accepted that he did not think straight, he was hypnotized with Edgar's seniority and praises. Similarly, Maria felt that she had gone overboard with her intimate relationship with Thomas; continuing would only cause problem. Thomas and Maria thought of abandoning the con, but Cesar, after cooling his head off, sought to catch up with Edgar and the spoils. The VDIB raided their meeting place, not the exchange's spot, as Edgar had swapped his tracker watch with Thomas during a chess game the previous night.
Behind the scene, the con was Edgar's farewell. He intended to steal the payout himself and run to his longed freedom with the fabricated identity that Thomas forged for him. He was the one contacting Bernardo and El Rubio to complicate the matter. The scheme transpired as he wished. The trio were to busy quarrelling so he went alone. Edgar received $1 million in a luggage from Felipe, then left via Da Silva's container ship that would sail to Lisbon. He had tasted the sweet victory... or had he?
Unbeknownst to Edgar, the trio had infiltrated the freighter by hiding in a container. They stepped out when the ship was already far from the land. In an intense hide-and-seek game, they chased and cornered Edgar to the end of the ship. It was revealed that under Cesar's direction, the trio blew up their base while running away behind the VDIB's force. Edgar laughed them out for seeking the money, but Thomas clarified that he seeked Edgar, wanting to give a message for the future that nobody should mess with the trio in his way. Thomas ordered Maria to execute Edgar, then Cesar dumped his body into the waterly grave.
The money itself was largerly lost in the wind as the luggage was damaged during the fight. The trio moved on to discuss their vacation; Portugal wasn't a bad destination choice.
Present Day (2018-)[]
After returning to America in summer 2018, Thomas continues to run long cons with Maria and Cesar in the coming years. However, the frequency becomes more and more dispersed as they take longer sabbaticals in-between scores to lay low. Working and living in isolation, the trio rarely collaborate with outsiders unless the latter's talents are neccessary for their plans. Thomas launders and invests their gains to multiple local businesses under different pseudonyms, such as a small agricultural company in South Yankton. He intentionally avoids investment in major stocks to dodge unwanted attentions, especially from their future marks.
The trio move their area of operation from Vice City to Liberty City in 2020, right after Thomas repaid the Phyllis Mob's loss a year before. They relocated once again to Las Venturas in the late 2021. In addition, they own multiple private properties across North America, including vacation homes in Nova Scotia and Yukon.
Personality[]
A brilliant grifter, Thomas possesses an exceptional attention to detail in every aspect of his cons, meticulously planning for any possible contingency. Reserved and composed, he carefully calculates every word he speaks. However, his ego often surfaces in his firm belief that he should always be the frontman, confident that he needs no guidance or advice on how to execute a plan. He also used to be much pacifist until the circumstances in Vice City changed his perspective: if blood must be shed for the con, then he does exactly that.
Within his crew, Thomas specializes in negotiation, offering the mark exactly what they want or need, but never in the way they expect. His language is reliable, professional, and suave, as if he were born to play the part. He has a knack for presenting the perfect deal at the perfect moment, with a timing and price that seem too good to pass up, a one-time opportunity the mark simply cannot refuse.
Despite being the main mastermind of the crew, Thomas is not the sharpest in the combat field. His years of violence-free confidence profession impacts his poor gunfighting skill and tactical awareness.
Other Connections[]
In Vice City, Thomas also made few other friends and contacts, some of which helped him in his confidence games:
- Neil Shackley: College dropout turned amateur pickpocket and gambling addict who Jan took under his wing. As Jan was not too interested in long con anymore, he requested Thomas to be Neil's mentor. Started off as a poor grifter, he improved under Thomas' guidance.
- Laura Mortes: American-Cuban bartender working in Aire Libre, a rooftop bar in Riverfront that Horacio frequently used as a meeting spot. She showed interest in learning the art of con from Thomas, but choosed to distance herself from his crime.
- Terry Edgecombe: Bahamian interior designer. Had a knack in preparing a "big store", fabricated indoor con setting to fool the mark.
Trivia[]
- Thomas is inspired by real-life and fictional conmen, such as thief Apollo Robbins, Mickey Stone from British series Hustle, and Leonardo DiCaprio's role as Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can.
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| Contents from Light & Shadow |
|---|
| Characters & Factions: Thomas Kingston • Maria Vinogradova • Cesar Álvarez • Adegoke • Edgar Zuáznabar • Irving Belfort • Medalla Cartel • National Revenue Authority • The Collective (Nikolai Kirikov) • Tijs Bergling • Valerio Reyes |
| Stories & DLCs: Light After Dark • Fortunate Face |