An 18-year-old from Oxford, England responsible for leaking early prototype footage of Grand Theft Auto 6 in 2022 has been sentenced to “an indefinite hospital order,” according to BBC.
The hacker, Arion Kurtaj, was responsible for the Rockstar Games hack that revealed GTA 6 early, along with other hacks on Uber and Nvidia, and “remained a high risk to the public,” according to the judge on his case.
In recent court proceedings, the jury was told that Kurtaj “had been violent while in custody with dozens of reports of injury or property damage.” Because of this, he will now remain at a hospital facility until further notice.
Doctors deemed him unfit to stand trial “due to his acute autism,” and a mental health assessment as part of sentencing said Kurtaj was “highly motivated” to keep hacking and he “continued to express the intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible.”
It was revealed earlier this year that Kurtaj committed the hack while out on bail for previously hacking Nvidia as part of the hacking group Lapsus$ when he used an Amazon Fire Stick, his phone, and a hotel room TV to steal 90 clips of unreleased, early footage of the highly anticipated game.
In court, Kurtaj’s defense team said the successful launch of GTA 6’s reveal trailer, racking up over 100 million views in days, showed that the hack did not harm the game. But Rockstar rebutted by saying that it cost $5 million “to recover from plus thousands of hours of staff time.”
GTA 6 was officially revealed on Dec. 4, a day ahead of schedule, because the reveal trailer leaked online hours before it was supposed to go live. The game is currently slated to release in 2025 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
