Jagex Employee Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Stealing Virtual Gold

A former employee of Old School RuneScape (OSRS) developer Jagex has been sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for two years. Andrew Lakeman, also known as Mod Jed, worked on OSRS from 2015 and was accused of stealing over $400,000 worth of virtual gold from players. The stolen items were sold on the black market.

Jagex initially thought the issue was a glitch but discovered that it was an inside job after investigating further. The company modified its firewall without telling employees to track the illegal activity back to Mod Jed. Lakeman denied the accusations, claiming someone had hacked his account to conduct the thefts.

However, investigators found that the virtual gold and other in-game items stolen by Lakeman were sold on the black market for over $400,000. He was also found to have held $493,000 in cash in various bank accounts, allegedly from cryptocurrency sales.

Jagex fired Lakeman and reported the incident to the police. He was arrested in July 2019 but only received a three-year sentence, suspended for two years, on September 3. The Cambridge Crown Court also gave him a 150-hour unpaid work sentence, plus 25 days of rehabilitation.