Montreal Newspaper La Presse Reportedly Interviewed Him
Back in November 2020, there was an incident that led to Ubisoft Montréal being evacuated and the police responding to what they believed was a “hostage situation.” It soon became clear that the whole thing was a hoax, but investigations into the event continued–and now it seems they finally have a suspect. On April 30th, 2021, Montréal newspaper La Presse reported that one Yanni Ouahioune, a French citizen who was banned from Rainbow Six over 80 times, is a suspect in the case. According to a translation of the article, his alleged motive was being upset that he’d been banned from Rainbow Six (again) and wanting the power to ban other players from the game.
Everyone who’s ever played a game in online multiplayer mode has probably wanted the ability to ban another player at one point, but most of us don’t set up fake hostage situations to try and force major video game companies to give us that power in real life. La Presse reportedly interview Ouahioune over Snapchat, where he admitted to previous incidents where he set up a fake Ubisoft site to steal Rainbow Six players’ passwords and a 2017 instance of swatting against Ubisoft Montréal, but denied his involvement in this case. That said, La Presse managed to obtain judicial documents connected to the case that do link Ouahioune with the November incident–as well as a December 2020 bomb threat, a second hostage report and fake shooting in January 2021, and the impersonation of a Ubisoft employee in an attempt to acquire the power to ban people from Rainbow Six. He has been indicted for the creation of the fake website by French authorities.
La Presse estimates that the Ubisoft Montréal hostage hoax cost the company over 1 million CDN dollars in lost productivity, and that isn’t even counting the material damages or the psychological support fees for innocent bystanders caught up in the mess. As Ouahioune is a French citizen, it’s unlikely he will face further charges in Montréal or extradition. Montréal authorities are still investigating the November 2020 Ubisoft hostage hoax.
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