Representatives from the Gallente Federation were to take the eminent scientists Touvolle and Umailen into their custody yesterday, but the release hit a snag when the persons bearing the name tags of the two scientists turned out to be Minmatar slaves in white lab coats. Preliminary interrogations of the two Minmatars reveal that they were on a slave transporter along with the two scientists and managed to steal the latter's identity chips. As the staff on the research facility had no idea whom to expect they did not raise a fuss when the Minmatars arrived in the guise of the scientists.
The slave transporter carrying the scientists, along with a few thousand Minmatar slaves, was heading for the Royal Mines, a collection of sulfur mines on Inis-Ilix IV in the Inis-Ilix system. It is now believed that the scientists were accidentally taken there and put to work as common slave labor. Authorities on the desolate planet have already been notified, but they will have a hard time locating the pair, as the hundred of thousands of slave workers there have no identities once they've been dumped on the planet. Conditions on Inis-Ilix IV are terrible, the planet is a blasted rock with barely breathable atmosphere. The death rate amongst the slaves is extremely high; they live in squalor with little food or sanitation, totally exposed to the harsh climate and ultra-violet sunrays.
The bureaucracy of Articio Kor-Azor, aided by Federal authorities, is now in full swing trying to locate the scientists, as all this is turning out to be a rather embarrassing episode for him. The fate of the two Minmatars that so ingeniously saved themselves from a life of misery on Inis-Ilix IV is yet to be decided.