Teenage hacker became legend attacking companies. Then his rivals attacked him.

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The City of London Police had put the teenage boy in the suburban Travelodge to protect him. They even set up a code with him and his mom to signal it was safe to open the door: “Lucky lucky." Then they grew suspicious.

The teen had a history with the police. It was September 2022, and 17-year-old Arion Kurtaj had been arrested twice earlier that year for his alleged role in a hacking group that stole data and demanded ransoms from some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Kurtaj, who is autistic, was released both times.

The second time, that March, he had been let go under the condition that he stay offline. Over the next few months, someone threw bricks at the windows of his family’s home, police said, and his mother’s car was smashed up. A bag of chicken was mysteriously delivered to the house.

Online rivals had doxxed him, posting his personal information online, and police found evidence of a plot to steal cryptocurrency from him. Officers decided he needed protection. That left Kurtaj in Room M15 of a Travelodge outside Oxford, where he was still supposed to be computer-free, with his mom in a room on another floor.

Roughly two weeks into his stay, just after 9 p.m., officers entered Kurtaj’s room. An Amazon Fire Stick—a small streaming device with internet access—was plugged into the hotel room TV. There was a keyboard and mouse, and a gold-toned iPhone on the bed, just under the duvet.

Police had been monitoring online messages they believed could be coming from Kurtaj almost until the moment they knocked on the door. Kurtaj was arrested a third time and charged with hacking, fraud and blackmail. Authorities said that while at the Travelodge, he broke into Uber and taunted