No I´m pretty sure he was a cheater, I was able to reproduce it myself. I mean seriously level 38 in a rhino? I went to level 38 when I "hacked it" and bought a new ship. It took some time to get the test server to accept the change but buying a new ship seems to knock it over and the character is now saved with for example 98million credits on the server. Otherwise you can just buy "free" weapon upgrades, shield modules, and cargo without the game "noticing" and updating your rank. Unlimited shield batts and nanobots also works..

I really hope a patch fixes this.