Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-76.174.114.157-20150524211933/@comment-26009169-20150524224637

Pre-v1.3 assassination targets can only be found within System Signal Sources, within these you will have the possibility of finding two events before you can find the assasination target. First event is that an NPC will tell you he just escaped the target and he is in X system or the current system. The second event is that an NPC who is a friend of the target has found out about you hunting him and wants you to hunt the system defense forces in the system you got the mission in. I might be wrong in saying that these events might happen before you find the target, but that's how it was when I did it (which was a few versions ago).

When you do find your assassination target they might be in a Wing and extra difficult to kill, beware that they're very difficult.

A rule of thumb for which Signal Sources to check are Unknown Signal Sources and Strong Signal Sources. If you don't find an Anaconda (or an Orca depending on your mission) straight away, jump away and roam around supercruise till you find them.