The French gamer responsible for a fake hostage-taking that cleared Ubisoft’s Montreal office in November 2020 was sentenced this week to three years of community service by a Paris court, according to the Montreal Gazette. Ouahioune’s three-year sentence includes several other charges related to a DDoS attack on a French government office and against Minecraft developer Mojang.
Yanni Ouahioune, 22, made a false report to the police on November 13, 2020, claiming that hostages had been taken at Ubisoft’s Montreal office. A police tactical unit arrived in armored vehicles and evacuated the building. Other employees took refuge in barricaded rooms and on the roof of the building before discovering there was no threat. The Ubisoft Montreal Building in the Mile End neighborhood of the city can house thousands of workers.
Court documents later revealed that Ouahioune was a Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege player angry that he was banned from the game, reportedly more than 80 times. It was later revealed that he had knocked down the studio twice more – making a fake emergency call to send a heavy police crackdown to the victim’s address. And other players similarly harassed.
Ouahioune used a computer in his parents’ house and routed the hoax calls through Russian servers, according to The Montreal Gazette. Even after being charged, Ouahioune asked Canadian newspaper La Presse to undo his Rainbow Six Siege account: “Could you kindly tell the Ubisoft team to ‘unban’ my account, please,” said Ouahioune. “I put over $1,500 in cosmetic enhancements into my profile.”
The Montreal Gazette reported that Ouahioune will be required to “compensate victims, receive treatment for a mental health problem, and work or receive training” as part of his sentence.
A Ubisoft representative acknowledged the court’s decision in a statement to Polygon, without commenting on the sentence itself. “In this process, we were determined to represent the interests of our employees who were affected by this false hostage alert at our Montreal studio,” they said. “It was important for us to denounce this violent and unacceptable incident. Out of respect for our employees affected by this event, we will not be commenting further.”