Key Takeaways
- Scottish authorities converted 23.5 Bitcoin into cash after tracing it from a 2020 robbery.
- The case is the first in Scotland to involve the tracing and seizure of stolen Bitcoin.
- The value of the Bitcoin was around $144,017, reflecting its worth at the time of the crime.
Scottish authorities have successfully tracked and converted 23.5 Bitcoin into cash following a violent home invasion in 2020 near Glasgow. The robbers, armed with a machete and a Toblerone bar, forced the victim to transfer the Bitcoin during the attack.
This case marks a milestone as the first robbery in Scotland where stolen Bitcoin was traced and seized. The incident, which took place in Blantyre, southeast of Glasgow, involved three men who broke into the home. One of the attackers repeatedly assaulted a woman with the personalized Toblerone before using it to make a “throat-slitting gesture.”
The victim testified that he awoke to find a man wielding a machete, who then forced him to transfer his Bitcoin. The stolen Bitcoin was eventually traced to John Ross Rennie, who was later convicted of possessing the digital currency.
In a significant legal step, Scottish prosecutors used proceeds of crime legislation to convert the 23.5 Bitcoin into cash, totaling £109,601 (approximately $144,017). This sum represents the value of Bitcoin at the time of the robbery in March 2020, when it was trading around $5,400.
Rennie, deemed the “technical brains” behind the operation, was sentenced to 150 hours of unpaid work and placed under a six-month supervision order.
