The great GTA 6 leak of 2022
Back in September 2022, Rockstar confirmed there’d been a leak in which a ton of early GTA 6 footage had been made public, showing everyone the early look at one of the most anticipated games in years. An alleged perpetrator was eventually caught. However, the hacker accused of the leak may not be standing trial.
In a report from Reuters, Arion Kurtaj—the 18-year-old who is believed to have hacked a number of big companies—has been declared “not fit to stand trial,” after being assessed by psychiatrists. The report goes on to say that the jury will determine whether he committed the acts alleged, rather than determine whether he is guilty or not guilty.
Alongside the GTA 6 leak, Kurtaj has been accused of 12 offenses. He’s also been accused, along with an unnamed 17-year-old, of blackmailing BT, one of the UK’s biggest internet providers. The 17-year-old will be standing trial on two counts of blackmail, two counts of fraud, and three charges under the UK’s Computer Misuse Act.
Rockstar needed to plug this leak
When the news that GTA 6 footage had been leaked, Rockstar issued a message on social media. The post said that the company had “suffered a network intrusion,” at the hands of an “unauthorized third party”, which “illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems.”
Many immediately had access to plenty of footage from an early development build of Grand Theft Auto 6. As huge as the leak was for both Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive, it didn’t deter the studio, which is still working on the anticipated GTA 5 follow-up. The accused hacker was arrested not long after the leak, but pleaded not guilty at the time.
