Rockstar Games suffered from a major hack back in September 2022. After having been imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time, the hacker – Arion Kurtaj – has now been released and is waiting for a retrial. Kurtaj is a member of a teen hacking group named Lapsus$, and in his original December 2023 trial for the hack, he was deemed unfit to stand trial after being diagnosed with “acute autism”.
According to the BBC’s Joe Tidy, Kurtaj has been released from the hospital where he was being kept and has been transferred to a normal prison. Now, Kurtaj is slated to face a standard criminal trial, with the hearing set to start in November. This confirmation comes after images of Kurtaj had been popping up on Snapchat from prison. The police weren’t confirming his release until a High Court judge lifted reporting restrictions.
The September 2022 hack of Rockstar Games resulted in 90 videos making their way online from an early-in-development build of Grand Theft Auto 6. The videos were quite extensive, showing off open-world gameplay, combat, vehicles, and even NPC interactions. Brands from the GTA universe could also be spotted in background assets, like Redwood Cigarettes and LifeInvader.
A few days later, a report indicated that the hacker responsible for the leak was being pursued by the US Department of Justice and the FBI. In a statement, one of the companies affected by the group’s actions, Uber, said that it was just one of the victims of Laspus$, alongside other companies like Nvidia, Samsung, and Okta.
“We believe that this attacker (or attackers) are affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$, which has been increasingly active over the last year or so. This group typically uses similar techniques to target technology companies, and in 2022 alone has breached Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Nvidia and Okta, among others.” It went on to acknowledge that “this same actor breached video game maker Rockstar Games.”
As for Grand Theft Auto 6, the title is slated for release on November 19th and is being developed for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Its pre-orders went live last month, with Rockstar Games confirming that its standard edition is priced at $80, and a more expensive Ultimate Edition is available for $100. While no official announcement on the matter has been made yet, pre-orders for the game have seemingly been quite strong, with the PS Store across several regions including it in their top-sellers lists.
A more recent report, courtesy of analyst group Newzoo, has estimated that the title has already made $180 million for Rockstar Games through sales in the US and the “top five European markets” into account. Factoring in “uncounted regions” seemingly brings this figure up to $260 million. Newzoo has noted that, if it keeps up its current pace, Grand Theft Auto 6 might end up having the “strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded” with the potential to bring in between $3.3 billion and $5.2 billion with in the first week of its release.
NEW: I can finally report that the GTA6 hacker Arion Kurtaj is out of the secure hospital he was sent to and now in a normal prison awaiting retrial. Kurtaj was a key member of the teen hacking gang Lapsus$ and was given an indefinite hospital order due to his severe autism diagnosis. When he was..
— Joe Tidy BBC News (@joetidy.bsky.social) 2026-07-14T14:38:43.197Z
sentenced in December 2023 the court heard that he will remain at a secure hospital for life unless doctors deem him no longer a danger. But he is now out and will face a conventional criminal trial in November. I have been trying to get this information confirmed with police for weeks after…
— Joe Tidy BBC News (@joetidy.bsky.social) 2026-07-14T14:38:43.198Z
images of Kurtaj apparently posting on Snapchat from prison began circulating online. But the police could not confirm it and there were reporting restrictions placed on the news. Today, after my request, the High Court judge lifted reporting restrictions. Background: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technol…
— Joe Tidy BBC News (@joetidy.bsky.social) 2026-07-14T14:38:43.199Z
