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Why the Teen GTA VI Hacker Was Sentenced to an Indefinite Hospital Order

Arion Kurtaj received an indefinite hospital order in 2023 after a jury found he committed offenses in a wider cybercrime campaign. A 2026 report said he had left the secure hospital and was awaiting retrial.
Length2 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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Arion Kurtaj, who was 18 when he was sentenced in December 2023, did not receive a conventional life prison sentence. A court imposed an indefinite hospital order with a restriction under the Mental Health Act after a jury found that he had committed offenses in a wider cybercrime campaign that included the Rockstar Games breach and Grand Theft Auto VI footage leak.

What happened in the GTA VI leak?

In 2022, unreleased Grand Theft Auto VI material from Rockstar Games was exposed. PC Gamer reported that 90 videos of varying lengths were uploaded to the GTAForums fan site. The breach was one major incident in a wider campaign linked to the Lapsus$ hacking group, which targeted companies including BT, EE, Nvidia and Uber.

The Associated Press reported that the campaign involved threats to release sensitive information unless companies paid. Whether ransoms were paid was unclear in AP’s account.

Why did the jury not return a normal guilty verdict?

Psychiatrists assessed Kurtaj as unfit to stand trial. As a result, the jury was asked to determine whether he committed the alleged acts, rather than whether he was guilty or not guilty in a conventional criminal trial. In August 2023, the jury found that he had committed 12 offenses, according to the Associated Press.

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That distinction matters: saying the jury “convicted” him would misstate the procedure described in the reports. The jury’s finding concerned whether he committed the acts; the later hospital order was a separate sentencing decision.

What did the 2023 hospital order mean?

In December 2023, Kurtaj received an indefinite hospital order under the Mental Health Act with a Section 41 restriction, Sky News reported. It was not a fixed-term prison sentence or a conventional whole-life prison term. Sky said discharge required the Justice Secretary’s approval.

Rank #2
Grand Theft Auto - PlayStation
  • Platform- Sony Playstation 1

The judge’s reported account of the Rockstar incident included $1.5 million in external help, as well as thousands of employee work hours; lost marketing opportunities were described as unquantifiable. The $1.5 million figure refers specifically to external help, not a definitive all-in estimate of the company’s losses.

Is the GTA VI hacker still in a secure hospital?

Not according to a July 16, 2026 report by PC Gamer, which cited BBC correspondent Joe Tidy. It said Kurtaj had left the secure hospital and was in a regular prison awaiting retrial, then scheduled for November 2026. That is a dated report of his status, not a verified outcome of the scheduled retrial; later developments may change the picture.

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Rank #3
Grand Theft Auto V - NL (PS3)
  • GTA 5 SUR PS3 / TAKE TWO - ROCKSTAR GAME
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What did the judge say about the wider campaign?

Sky News reported Judge Patricia Lees saying: “You two were key players in what was a spree of cyber offending by a hacking group calling itself Lapsus$,” and: “That group targeted large technology companies and subjected them to hacking, blackmail and fraud.” These quotations are reproduced as Sky attributed them; they are not independently checked against a court transcript here.

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Grand Theft Auto - PlayStation
Grand Theft Auto - PlayStation
Platform- Sony Playstation 1
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GTA 5 SUR PS3 / TAKE TWO - ROCKSTAR GAME
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