The hacker charged with breaching Rockstar Games to pull off 2022's infamous GTA 6 leak has reportedly been released from the secure hospital where he was being held as he prepares to face a criminal trial later this year.
Arion Kurtaj – a member of hacking group Lapsus$ who allegedly pulled off the enormous Rockstar Games hack in a hotel room using an Amazon Fire Stick, mobile phone, and hotel TV while on bail for a different hack – was deemed psychologically unfit to stand trial back in July 2023. In December 2023, over a year on from the incident which Rockstar Games stated had cost it $5 million to recover from, it was reported by the BBC that the then-18-year-old would spend life in a secure hospital unless he was deemed to no longer be a danger by doctors.
According to a Bluesky post from BBC News cyber correspondent Joe Tidy, Kurtaj's circumstances have now reportedly changed. Kurtaj is "out of the secure hospital he was sent to and now in a normal prison awaiting retrial," Tidy reports, adding that he "will face a conventional criminal trial in November."
Back in December 2023, a judge reportedly determined that Kurtaj was a risk to the public because of his skill and desire to commit cybercrimes, with a mental health assessment stating that he "continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated."
Shortly after the hack took place, Rockstar said it was "extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way," but said, "we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects."
Even so, as well as apparently costing the company $5 million to deal with, Rockstar later told the court that the incident had taken up thousands of hours of staff members' time.
While you're here, be sure to catch up on everything we know about GTA 6 so far.
