15 arrested in connection with PUBG cheating programs

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Fined a combined total of $5.1m.

Fifteen people suspected of developing and selling hacking programs affecting PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds have been arrested and fined a combined total of $5.1m, developer Bluehole has announced.

Writing in a Steam post, Bluehole said that other suspects are still being investigated, and that in the cases of those arrested, cheating programs included malicious code designed to steal user information. 

Local authorities working on the case, translated via Bluehole, said: "15 major suspects including 'OMG', 'FL', '火狐', '须弥' and '炎黄' were arrested for developing hack programs, hosting marketplaces for hack programs, and brokering transactions. Currently the suspects have been fined approximately 30m RNB ($5.1m USD). Other suspects related to this case are still being investigated.

"Some hack programs that are being distributed through the internet include a Huigezi Trojan horse (Chinese backdoor) virus. It was proven that hack developers used this virus to control users’ PC, scan their data, and extract information illegally.”

I can't find any currency that has the abbreviation RNB, so I presume it's actually supposed to be RMB, the abbreviation for renminbi, which is the official currency of China—the conversion is roughly right. It's not clear whether all the arrests were made in one country or not.

"We’ll continue to crack down on hacking/cheating programs, until our players are free to battle it out in a totally fair environment," Bluehole added. 

Samuel Horti
Samuel Horti

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.