- "The Exchange is a big crime outfit, mostly operating out of Nar Shaddaa: spice running, gun trafficking, slave trading. Now I guess they're posting bounties on Jedi."
- —Atton Rand[src]
The Exchange was a criminal organization active around 4,000 BBY that dealt in spice smuggling, extortion, weapon trafficking, slave trading, and bounty hunting. During the First Jedi Purge, there was a huge bounty on live Jedi large enough to purchase an entire planet. It was often locally represented by sham fronts, such as Citadel Station's Bumani Exchange Corporation.
The Exchange was an extremely powerful criminal organization that operated throughout much of the Outer Rim Territories. The shadowy group was led by an even more mysterious entity called the Compeer, with a command structure that included individual crime lords controlling profitable worlds. The only way to be accepted into this elite group was to be nominated by several other crime lords.
Goto was the Exchange boss of Nar Shaddaa. He was never seen in person, and appeared only as a hologram. This was because 'Goto' was not an organic being: he was a droid (G0-T0) using the hologram to give the impression that he was a living being. Eventually, he would travel with the Jedi Exile.
G0-T0 managed to use the illegal actions of the Exchange for his ultimate purpose of stabilizing the Galactic Republic. Its smuggling ring caused the deaths of destabilizing persons or organizations, developed unofficial profits for entire sectors, and strengthened Republic worlds that would otherwise be poor and ignored. Believing that the major source of the Republic's problems revolved around the Jedi Civil War, it also enacted bounties for live Jedi and Sith. Many bounty hunters simply killed Jedi and Sith instead of capturing them, but the outcome remained: less Jedi or Sith to fight against each other meant less fighting period. According to Kreia's predictions before her death on Malachor V, the Exchange grew in power, until the utt's ceased tolerating the Exchange, causing it to slowly feed upon itself.
