£110,000 Taken from Convicted Legal

In a landmark case in Scotland, £110,000 (value roughly $144,384) has been seized from 29-year-old John Ross Rennie. This marks the primary time that proceeds of crime laws have been used to confiscate cryptocurrency as bodily money.

This case was settled on the Excessive Courtroom in Edinburgh.

Violent Theft

Rennie of Cambuslang was convicted of possessing stolen items following a violent theft in Blantyre, southeast of Glasgow, in March 2020. The court docket heard final 12 months that three males carried out a house invasion the place the sufferer awoke to discover a man standing over him with a machete, forcing him to switch 23.5 Bitcoin, equal to £109,601.

In the course of the assault, a lady on the property was repeatedly crushed with a personalised Toblerone bar and thrown right into a bed room. The assailant then made a “throat-slitting gesture” with the bloodied chocolate bar earlier than fleeing.

Though Rennie denied involvement within the theft, he was recognized because the “technical brains” behind the operation, offering experience on how you can switch the cryptocurrency, as per BBC’s report earlier this week.

Regardless of his position, Rennie obtained a comparatively lenient sentence of 150 hours of unpaid work and a six-month supervision order. On September 3, attorneys at Edinburgh’s Excessive Courtroom agreed that the Bitcoin may very well be transformed into money.

Elevated Crypto Crime in UK

In response to the surge in crypto crime throughout the UK, the Monetary Conduct Authority, which oversees the monetary companies sector, devoted 30% of its monetary crime specialists, or 15.8 employees members, to focus on crypto asset corporations.

The UK Dwelling Workplace introduced new powers in April this 12 months that allow legislation enforcement to grab cryptocurrency tied to felony exercise with no need to make an arrest. These guidelines, carried out following final 12 months’s crime invoice, intention to extra swiftly confiscate illicit belongings.

In the meantime, crypto tactical advisors have been stationed throughout the nation by police, resulting in the seizure of tons of of tens of millions of kilos in digital belongings.

In addition to, in January, a joint investigation by the Nationwide Crime Company and the US Drug Enforcement Administration right into a drug ring led to the confiscation of $150 million in money and cryptocurrency.