Convicted criminal has £110,000 seized

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

The case was settled on the Excessive Court docket in Edinburgh.

violent theft

Rennie, from Cambuslang, was discovered responsible of possession of stolen items following a violent theft in Blantyre, south-east of Glasgow, in March 2020. , the sufferer woke as much as discover a man standing over him with a machete, forcing him to switch 23.5 Bitcoins, equal to £109,601.

In the course of the assault, a girl on the resort was repeatedly punched with a personalised Toblerone bar and thrown right into a bed room. The attacker then made a “throat-slitting gesture” with the blood-stained chocolate earlier than working away.

Though Rennie denied involvement within the theft, the BBC reported that he was thought-about the “technical brains” behind the operation, offering experience on tips on how to transfer cryptocurrencies. Report earlier this week.

Regardless of this position, Rainey obtained a comparatively gentle sentence of 150 hours of unpaid work and a six-month supervision order. On September 3, attorneys on the Excessive Court docket in Edinburgh agreed that Bitcoin may very well be exchanged for money.

Cryptocurrency crime will increase in UK

In response to a surge in cryptocurrency crime throughout the UK, the Monetary Conduct Authority, which regulates the monetary companies business, devoted 30% of economic crime specialists, or 15.8 workers, deal with crypto-asset corporations.

british house workplace declare New powers in April this 12 months allow legislation enforcement to grab cryptocurrencies associated to felony exercise with out making arrests. The foundations had been launched following final 12 months’s Crime Invoice and are supposed to make unlawful asset seizures quicker.

In the meantime, police stationed cryptocurrency tactical advisers throughout the nation, resulting in the seizure of tons of of hundreds of thousands of kilos of digital property.

Moreover, in January, a joint investigation by the Nationwide Crime Company and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration right into a drug syndicate resulted within the seizure of $150 million in money and cryptocurrency.