The Edinburgh High Court ruled to confiscate 23.5 BTC (equivalent to over $1.38 million) in a case against John Ross Rennie, connected to a robbery in Blantyre. In March 2020, a group of unknown individuals, threatening a married couple with a machete, demanded that they transfer Bitcoin to them.
The incident was notable not only for its brutality but also for its unusual nature: one of the attackers repeatedly struck the victim’s wife with a Toblerone chocolate bar. After the man transferred the required crypto assets, the criminals fled the scene.
Although John Ross Rennie did not personally participate in the attack, the investigation established his involvement in the case. The prosecution proved that he advised the attackers on transferring the crypto assets and temporarily stored them in his wallets, which became a key element of the evidence. The confiscation of cryptocurrency set a precedent for the Scottish legal system and marks a new phase in combating crimes related to digital assets.
