Arion Kurtaj, the 18-year-old hacker who leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 footage online, faces a life sentence in a hospital prison. The BBC reported that a British judge ruled on Thursday that Kurtaj posed a serious threat to the public because he had not given up on his involvement in cybercrime.
Kurtaj was part of Lapsus$, a hacking group that targeted GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games and companies such as Uber and Nvidia. A London jury concluded in August that Mr. Courtaj was responsible for the cyber attack, but his criminal intent could not be determined because he is autistic and unfit to stand trial. . The jury only had to decide whether he had committed the act he was accused of.
According to the BBC, a judge heard on Thursday that Kurtaj had committed “violent acts in custody, with dozens of reports of injuries and property damage”.
Also read | Insomnia game leaked: Hacker demands $2 million, leaks game by 2032
A mental health examination also revealed that Mr Kurtaj “continued to express his intention to return to cybercrime as soon as possible”. He will remain in prison for the rest of his life unless doctors decide it is safe for him to be released.
Kurtaj was on bail for hacking Nvidia and British telecommunications company BT/EE when he leaked 90 GTA 6 gameplay videos in September. He was under police protection in a hotel, but was still able to hack into Rockstar Games using an Amazon Fire Stick in his room and “a newly purchased smartphone, keyboard and mouse,” the BBC said. This is stated in another report.
He was finally arrested after this incident.
Another 17-year-old member of Lapsus$ was given an 18-month community sentence known as a Youth Rehabilitation Order and banned from using virtual private networks.
The official trailer for GTA 6 was released earlier this month and has racked up hundreds of millions of views despite a video leak by Kurtaj and an early release of the trailer on X (formerly Twitter).
Also read | BTS is invincible. The “GTA 6” trailer collected millions of dollars, but could not steal the viewership of Dynamite.Fans want collaboration
The outlet reported that the judge rejected Kurtaj’s defense that Lapsasdol harmed real people and businesses and that the trailer’s popularity should be taken into account at sentencing. Rockstar Games claimed to have spent $5 million recovering from the attack.
