A self-professed Rainbow Six cheater is allegedly a suspect in last November’s Ubisoft Montreal hostage situation hoax, but he denies any involvement.
In November 2020, Montreal police responded to a hostage situation at the gaming company’s Canadian headquarters, which ultimately turned out to be fake. Montreal newspaper La Presse reported that one Yanni Ouahioune — a Rainbow Six player with a spotty history that reportedly includes being banned from the game more than 80 times — is a suspect in the case, as translated by Kotaku.
La Presse reported that it spoke with Ouahioune via Snapchat. He admitted to a previous 2017 swatting incident against Ubisoft Montreal but denied any involvement with the 2020 hostage hoax. However, La Presse obtained judicial documents related to the matter that do link Ouahioune with the November incident.
The documents purport to link the fake hostage report, a December 2020 bomb threat, another hostage report and fake shooting this past January, and the subsequent impersonation of a Ubisoft employee. Around the same time, the same suspect allegedly demanded that Ubisoft ban professional Rainbow Six player and streamer Spoit.GODSENT, reported La Presse. That player’s account was hacked weeks prior, allegedly by Ouahioune.
In fact, Ouahioune bragged about that hack. However, he now says someone else was behind that incident and that he only made the initial claim for notoriety.
While French authorities indicted Ouahioune for creating a fake Ubisoft website to steal others users’ passwords, La Presse reported that further charges in Montreal are unlikely, as Ouahioune is a French citizen. This makes extradition unlikely.
That said, Montreal police told Kotaku in an email that it continues to work with other authorities in the investigation to “identify, locate, and arrest” one or more suspects in last November’s hoaxed Ubisoft Montreal hostage situation. The department’s spokesperson could not provide any further information at this time.
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