Can I force std::vector to leave a memory leak?

It is possible but you should never do it. Forcing a vector to leave memory leak is a terrible idea and if you need such a thing then you need to re-think your design. std::vector is a resource managing type whose one of the main goals is to ensure that we don't have a leak. Never try to break that.

Now, to answer your specific question: std::vector takes an allocator type as second template parameter which is default to std::allocator<T>. Now you can write a custom allocator that doesn't release any memory and use that with your vector. Writing a custom allocator is not very trivial work, so I'm not going to describe that here (but you can Google to find the tutorials).

If you really want to use custom allocator then you must ensure that your vector never triggers a grow operation. Cause during growing capacity the vector will move/copy data to new location and release the old memories using the allocator. If you use an allocator that leaks then during growing you not only retain the final data, but also retain the old memories which I'm sure that you don't want to retain. So make sure that you create the vector with full capacity.

No.

Vectors are not implemented to have memory leaks, and the interface does not provide a way to create one.

You can't "steal" the memory (removing ownership of it from the vector), which is possibly a bit of a shame.

Sorry, but you are going to have to either copy (as you're doing now), or not use vector.

The vector is desiged to prevent leaks.

But if you want to shoot yourself in the foot, it's possible. Here's how you prevent the vector from deallocating its internal array:

int *foo()
{
    std::vector<int> v(10,1);

    int *ret = v.data();
    new (&v) std::vector<int>; // Replace `v` with an empty vector. Old storage is leaked.
    return ret;
}

As the other answers say, you should never do it.