He was sentenced to three years of community service over the hostage hoax, which he did in retaliation for repeated Rainbow Six bans.
Share this story
See our ethics statement.
Twenty-two-year-old Yanni Ouahioune was recently sentenced in France to three years of community service for calling in a fake hostage situation in 2020, also known as swatting, at the Ubisoft Montreal offices, as well as initiating DDoS attacks against a French government office and making threats toward Minecraft maker Mojang, according to Montreal Gazette.
Ouahioune was allegedly upset about having been banned from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege more than 80 times for cheating. He was named as a suspect in the case in April of 2021, Montreal outlet La Presse reported at the time.
Ouahioune routed his calls through Russian servers to avoid detection, Montreal Gazette reports. After his calls, Ubisoft Montreal’s offices were swarmed by police, while workers in the building barricaded themselves in offices or fled to the building’s roof. Oahioune had previously issued a vague threat of “cheats of hell” to Ubisoft on his YouTube channel, using an apparent paid actor to read the threat.
During his sentence, Ouahioune will be required to get mental health treatment, work or be trained for work, and compensate the victims of his swatting.
The FBI recently launched a national “swatting” database to combat the dangerous prank trend, which the bureau says has been on the rise this year.
