Gembe quelled his suspicion and dialled the number he had been provided with. As far as he knew, this was an interview with two senior members of Valve's management team. In reality, the call was being taped by the FBI.
"I hoped for the best," he says. "I was not the brightest kid back then. At first they wanted to know how I hacked into the network. I told them in full detail. Then they asked me about my experience and skills. I still remember they were surprised that I spoke fluent English without much of an accent."
The trio talked for 40 minutes. Any sense of guilt dissipated for Gembe in the presence of his heroes. But that was nothing compared to the adrenalin rush he felt when he received an invitation to a second interview, a face-to-face meeting at Valve's headquarters in Seattle, on American soil.
Having set the trap, Valve and the FBI needed to obtain a visa for Gembe (and his father and brother, who wanted to accompany him to the United States). But there were concerns about the ongoing access that Gembe had to Valve's servers and the potential damage he could still cause. So the FBI contacted the German police in order to alert them to the plan.
Later that week, an armed German policeman woke Gembe before dawn. He got dressed and headed downstairs. The corridors were lined by police, squeezed into his father's house.
"Can I get something to eat before we leave?" Gembe asked. "No problem," said one of the policemen.
Gembe reached for a kitchen knife to cut some bread. "Every policeman in the room raised his rifle at me," he says.
After drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette, Gembe climbed into the back of a van and was driven to the local police station. There the chief of police greeted him. He walked up to Gembe, looked him in the eye and said: "Have you any idea how lucky you are that we got to you before you got on that plane?"
While I'm happy it worked out that way; no one deserves to be sentenced to the vicious U.S. prison system over hacking that was more out of curiosity than malice; I'm kind of left wondering if anything they could get him on in Germany would be actionable. The crimes he committed were against American game developers, were they not? Are countries even allowed arresting people in response to crimes they committed against people elsewhere? If so, why didn't France put Roman Polanski in jail; in their own borders if need be; for the crimes he committed elsewhere?
