Arion Kurtaj, the hacker who leaked early Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay footage in 2022, will stand trial on November 9 at Woolwich Crown Court in the United Kingdom.
The proceedings begin just ten days ahead of Rockstar Games' official GTA 6 release date on November 19.
GTAVice.net spotted the court listing through a LinkedIn post published by barristers at Red Lion Chambers, the legal team representing Kurtaj. The trial marks the culmination of a four-year saga that started when the teenage member of the Lapsus$ hacking group breached Rockstar's internal communications and dumped dozens of developmental gameplay clips online, giving fans their earliest look at the game long before Rockstar dropped its official teaser trailer in late 2023.
The details behind the September 2022 intrusion drew global attention for their audacity. Kurtaj executed the attack from a hotel room where he was staying after gaining bail on separate cyber offenses. Equipped with just a smartphone and an Amazon streaming stick, he breached the studio's network infrastructure. Kurtaj claimed at the time to hold the game's actual source code, though a working build of the project never appeared on the web. The case against him extends well past Rockstar, with prosecutors also pursuing charges over earlier intrusions aimed at Uber and Nvidia.
Kurtaj's mental health had temporarily halted regular criminal proceedings. A British judge declared him unfit to stand trial in 2023, ordering him committed to a psychiatric hospital. Authorities reportedly moved him from hospital custody into a prison facility in 2026, setting the stage for the Woolwich Crown Court hearing to decide the case.
Rockstar never attributed either of its two previous launch delays to the 2022 leak, but network intrusions continue to hover over the studio. Take-Two and Rockstar are presently tracking another actor operating under the moniker Cyberleek, who has returned to publish unauthorized GTA 6 footage in an apparent attempt to disrupt the game's promotional rollout.
The pressure on Take-Two's infrastructure has brought law enforcement into other cases as well. Authorities recently detained two suspects associated with the ShinyHunters outfit on allegations of swiping analytics telemetry tied to Red Dead Online and GTA Online.
Barring any eleventh-hour postponements from the judge, Kurtaj's legal fate will be argued inside a London courtroom while the gaming industry prepares for the title's arrival ten days later.
GDFiled by The Games Desk
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