Arion Kurtaj was 17 and living in Oxford when he uploaded 90 videos of in-development GTA 6 footage to GTAForums in September 2022. He was under police protection at a Travelodge hotel at the time, having already been arrested once in connection with the Lapsus$ hacking group. The upload used a borrowed phone and an Amazon Firestick hooked up to the hotel TV. Within hours, the footage was everywhere: raw gameplay, mission sequences, and a build of Vice City that no one outside Rockstar had seen. Rockstar later stated the breach cost the company $5 million to recover from.
Kurtaj could not face a conventional trial because doctors deemed his severe autism left him unfit to stand in the dock. A jury was instead asked to determine whether he had committed the acts and whether he did so with criminal intent. In December 2023, they said yes. A judge sentenced him to a hospital order with no fixed release date, placing him in a secure psychiatric facility for as long as medical staff judged him a danger. That order had no guaranteed endpoint.
BBC reporter Joe Tidy confirmed this week on Bluesky that Kurtaj has now left the secure hospital and been placed in a regular prison. He will face a conventional criminal trial in November 2026. That timing puts the case running directly alongside GTA 6's launch window. What changed to allow the transfer, and the precise trial date, have not been publicly disclosed. PC Gamer, GamesRadar, RockstarINTEL, and The Gamer all reported the news today.