Lifelong Ban Imposed on US Counter-Strike Professional for Stealing Equipment from Other Players at IEM Dallas

After being discovered stealing SSDs (storage devices) from his rivals, professional Counter-Strike player Adam “nbgee12” Zanzoul was ejected from the CS2 major IEM Dallas 2024 while he was permanently banned from the FACEIT platform and its Pro League earlier.

Zanzoul was banned from this year’s CS2 major in Dallas and got a permanent ban from the FACEIT platform (a UK eSports platform that runs leagues for games like Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Rocket League, etc.) due to match-fixing at FACEIT Pro League earlier. This is almost unbelievable what the player from the USA just did—two months have passed since the Electronic Sports League (ESL), a German eSports organization and production company that hosts video game tournaments all over the world, overturned a previous 100-year ban on Zanzoul due to new regulations. To add even more credence to the tale, an American player claimed that the demon weed was to blame.

The incident happened in the early hours of May 31, despite the fact that it had seen the light in recent days. It happened when Zanzoul, a 19-year-old Counter-Strike pro, obtained access to a backstage area that held the equipment of other players. The former member of the Elevate team helped himself to SSDs that belonged to Guy “NertZ” Iluz, Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, and Jake “Stewie2K” Yip, his fellow pros and rivals.

Social media users were the first to report about the event, and Zanzoul later spoke with fellow player and streamer Collin “CoJoMo” Moren about it. Admittedly, Zanzoul removed the three SSDs from a bigger stack of hardware before returning them to his room at the Omni Dallas Hotel, which is attached to the event space – Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center that saw G2 Esports taking the title despite being set at only the sixth tournament favorite by best CS2 betting sites, doing so against the top favorite, Team Vitality.

Zanzoul’s Version of Incident

According to Zanzoul’s point of view, he arrived at the location at 4 a.m. and was “let into the venue during the night, I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and took stuff”. In case you’re wondering why there was a large stack of SSDs idling around, these are retained by event organizers for the length of the competition to guarantee competitive integrity and more seamless match preparations. They hold the configurations and settings specific to each participant for each match.

An American continued by saying that Dallas Police detained him because ESL personnel discovered video evidence of him committing it on a security camera. The SSDs were given back, and the ESL chose not to file charges. However, he was banned for five years, which was later upgraded to a lifelong ban.

Zanzoul Admits His Fault Despite Providing Tons of Weird Explanations

As it happened, Zanzoul provided a plethora of justifications. He made an absurd suggestion, saying that perhaps it was just trolling. Or that, among other things, he was a self-described “moron” who says stuff like “I just do dumb things sometimes” that are too unpleasant to replicate. He said he’s never done anything like this or been arrested before, which, if true, seems immaterial nonetheless, and said he didn’t think it would be a big problem. Zanzoul added that he had been smoking marijuana and was high when he was subsequently approached by the media for a remark.

Now for the confession, Zanzoul added there weren’t enough words to describe how disgusting and humiliating this has been. Sincerely embarrassed by his actions, he’s determined to grow from what happened.