- French Rainbow Six player Yanni Ouahioune denies involvement in new swatting attempts on Ubisoft Montreal's building
- Ubisoft has argued that they suspect Ouahioune of placing at least three prank calls, threatening to “terrorize the company to its death”
- Ouahioune said that he had no connection with the calls and the only thing he had done was to cheat in Ubisoft's games
French citizen Yanni Ouahioune is suspected by Ubisoft for placing a series of prank calls, one of which led to the November 2020 swatting of the company's office in Montreal.
‘I Didn't Do Anything,' Says R6 Player Suspected of Swatting
Swatting calls have resulted in the deaths of several people over the years, often placed by disgruntled video gamers who thought it would be fun to alert heavily-armed police forces to a bogus hostage situation that could potentially endanger the lives of innocent bystanders, as it has on multiple occasions.
Now, Ubisoft is on the prowl for someone who sent a swat team to the company's Montreal office in November 2020. The prank call was quickly de-escalated through the joint efforts of authorities and Ubisoft team members and things ended up well.
The video gaming company is suspecting French citizen Yanni Ouahioune of placing the “prank” call according to a report from La Presse, a French daily newspaper, which spoke with Ouahioune who denied wrongdoing.
Known as Y4nn0XX in gaming circles, Ouahioune has been a controversial member of the Rainbow Six Siege community. In 2017, he attempted to place another swatting call against a fellow Six Siege player and nearly succeeded.
He has repeatedly been banned, 80 times in fact, ranging from violations such as verbal abuse and harassment to setting up a fake Ubisoft website to scam people out of their passwords – an impressive feat all by itself.
Ouahioune has been traced to various cheating software that he has been distributing through forums to fulfill his promise of “punishing Ubisoft” for repeatedly banning him.
“I didn't do anything. I just cheated in their videogames. The only time I called Ubisoft was to insult them for banning me,” Ouahioune argued, and said that the company may try to put his name out there because they “knew about him.”
The Ouahioune Connection Is Not Clear
La Presse obtained documents that revealed that following the first call, there have been two more calls, one stipulating that a company executive had been kidnapped and executed and the other one threatening that a bomb had been placed close to the company's daycare.
The police, though, were cautious that time around and investigated without attracting public attention. One of the calls was intercepted by Ubisoft's own security team. In the conversation, brief as it were, an anonymous person threatened to terrorize the company to its demise and demanded Rainbow: Six Siege keys as well as the ability to suspend players at a whim.
Ubisoft's lead into the case stems from beef that the anonymous caller had with another player Spoit, demanding his suspension during the conversation. In the weeks prior to the attack, Ouahioune had boasted of successfully hacking into Spoit's account.
However, it later transpired that Ouahioune had not in fact hacked Spoit and that someone else must have done it in the player's own words. Speaking to La Presse, Ouahioune asked the publication to pass a request along to Ubisoft, asking for his account to be unlocked as he had invested $1,500 in cosmetic improvements.
With Ouahioune firmly denying wrongdoing, Ubisoft still has a problem on its hand, as someone out there is targeting the company. The company has refused to comment as it argued that it would risk jeopardizing its investigation.
