Alleged GTA 6 leaker has been formally charged by police

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"The teenager has been charged with breach of bail and two counts of computer misuse"

The three playable characters having an exchange in GTA 5
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

The 17-year-old arrested on suspicion of hacking and widely thought to be the person behind last weekend's shocking GTA 6 leaks has now been charged with the offenses. 

On Thursday, September 22, a teenager from the UK was arrested on suspicion of hacking, with an emerging report linking the individual to the recent Rockstar Games breach that resulted in over 90 GTA 6 videos and screens leaking online last weekend. 

Keys reports that he has been charged with "two computer crimes and two counts of violating his bail". It's thought that rumors about the teen being associated with the hacking group Lapsus$ are indeed true. 

In an updated statement posted over the weekend, City of London Police (not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police) said: 

"The City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on Thursday (September 22) on suspicion of hacking, as part of an investigation supported by the National Crime Agency's National Cyber Crime Unit. He has been charged in connection with this investigation and remains in police custody.

"The teenager has been charged with two counts of breach of bail conditions and two counts of computer misuse".

The teenager appeared at Highbury Corner Youth Court yesterday, September 24, but as yet there's been no further update on the outcome of that court appearance.

As for Rockstar itself? It officially acknowledged the leak on Monday. 

"We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto," a Twitter statement from the studio reads. 

"At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects," Rockstar says, seemingly addressing concerns that a leak of this size could force the studio to scrap and redo non-trivial portions of GTA 6. Rockstar further affirms that "our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned."

"The GTA 6 leak helped nobody," Austin wrote in his feature, The GTA 6 leak was bad for everyone, but I'm glad developers are celebrating the brokenness of games. "However, it did indirectly result in a ton of game developers talking candidly about how games are made, which is always a treat. 

"Many devs even shared some in-progress builds of their own to put the leak into perspective and correct hasty criticism of unfinished games and graphics. We rarely see the games industry rally around things like this, and it's even rarer for so many devs to come together and explain how the sausage is made."

There are plenty of games like GTA, if you need to fill the long wait ahead for the next entry in the series.

Vikki Blake
Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.