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Yanni Ouahioune, the 22-year-old Rainbow Six Siege player who swatted the Ubisoft Montreal offices in November 2020, has been sentenced to three years of community service for his crimes. “Swatting” is defined as making a prank call to emergency services to bring a dispatch of armed officers to a specific location. This is a serious crime, as swatting has led to people being killed.
This news comes by way of the Montreal Gazette, which notes that Ouahioune will also have to “compensate victims, undergo treatment for a mental health problem and either work or undergo training.”
Ouahioune made a false claim that hostages were taken at the Ubisoft Montreal office on November 13, 2020, leading to an evacuation of the building. Armed officers were dispatched to the location before learning Ouahioune’s call was, in fact, a hoax. Later, it was revealed that Ouahioune swatted the office due to being banned from the online shooter Rainbow Six Siege.
According to La Presse (via Polygon), Ouahioune asked the publication for his Siege account to be unbanned. “Can you say that I am kindly asking the Ubisoft team to ‘unban’ my account, please?” He apparently told the publication he had spent “over $1,500” on cosmetics within the game.
In a statement issued to Polygon, a Ubisoft spokesperson said, “In this trial, we were committed to representing the interests of our employees who were affected by this false hostage-taking alert at our Montreal studio.” The spokesperson also said Ubisoft will not comment on this event further, “out of respect” for its employees.
