Infamous GTA 6 hacker released from prison, vows to leak again

Like a storyline you might get in a modern Grand Theft Auto game, the tale of Arion Kurtaj is a truly bizarre one. Some whizz kid hacker gains access to sensitive information, shares it for the world to see, and then gets promptly banged up behind bars.

With GTA VI pitched as the biggest video game of all time, it's been hard to keep a lid on things. Years before Rockstar Games (unsurprisingly) confirmed GTA VI was in the works, 2018's infamous Project Americas leak was close to the money as it teased a return to a Miami-inspired setting and promised a playable female protagonist.

Of course, all of this was blown out of the water by Arion Kurtaj's September 2022 leak, which ‘rocked’ Rockstar to the core.

Who is Arion Kurtaj?

Aged just 17 at the time, Arion Kurtaj pulled off his own impressive heist armed with just a mobile phone, an Amazon Fire Stick, and a hotel room. It's said that Kurtaj gained access to Rockstar's internal Slack messaging channel and then bypassed security by tricking an employee into providing login credentials.

Thought to be working as part of the Lapsus$ cybercrime ring, which is largely made up of teenage hackers, Kurtaj searched for pinned files and images while making off with 90 downloaded videos.

Sharing a simple threat of, "I am not a Rockstar employee, I am an attacker," the young hacker demanded a ransom or vowed to leak the files.

As Rockstar refused to comply, Kurtaj released a deluge of videos and cost the video game giant a reported $5 million alongside thousands of staff hours.

The irony is that Kurtaj was already out on bail following a hack against Nvidia. At the time of the GTA VI incident, he was under police protection at a Travelodge and had his laptop confiscated.

Suggesting that he might not have learned his lesson (again), Kurtaj previously vowed to keep hacking as he's due for potential release before GTA VI is even out.

READ MORE: GTA 6 Gameplay Leak Reveals Rockstar's 'Most Massive And Insane Map Ever'

GTA VI source code could soon be leaked

Looks like we got Arion Kurtaj before GTA VI, as he's now been released from indefinite imprisonment at a secure hospital and is facing a retrial. It was originally deemed that the young man was medically unfit to stand trial, leading to his being transferred to a secure hospital for the rest of his life, or he was declared fit.

Over on Bluesky, BBC correspondent Joe Tidy claims that Kurtaj is being housed in a 'normal prison' and is awaiting a retrial in November 2026. This just so happens to be when GTA VI is due to be unleashed on the masses.

When the BBC initially reported on Kurtaj's incarceration in December 2023, it said his severe autism' played a part in his being declared unfit to stand trial, leading to the jury simply being asked to determine if he committed the alleged acts, not if he did it with criminal intent.

That same article referred to a mental health assessment, where Kurtaj "continued to express the intent to return to cyber-crime as soon as possible. He is highly motivated."

This has been backed up by the idea that he managed to smuggle a burner phone into prison, with RockstarINTEL showing off a series of posts and message exchanges linked to Kurtaj.

As well as bragging about how 'amazing' his time in the mental hospital was, a Snapchat account with Kurtaj’s name included an apparent selfie and mentions that he's awaiting trial on some “bullsh*t hacking charge."

A series of messages between someone reported to be Kurtaj and another called Omar discuss the mythical GTA VI source code and suggest that it's still out there in the wild and ready to be leaked once the game is officially out. When discussing the GTA VI source code, the account linked to Kurtaj wrote: "Interesting. No futher [sic] comment on that matter."

We'd like to think that spending time locked up would give someone time for reflection, but when it comes to Arion Kurtaj, his infamy could soon continue.