Scottish Court Seizes £110,000 in Bitcoin, Marking First Time Cryptocurrency Confiscated as Physical Cash

In a landmark case in Scotland, £110,000 (worth approximately $144,384) has been seized from 29-year-old John Ross Rennie.

A Scottish court has ordered the confiscation of £110,000 (around $144,384) in Bitcoin from a 29-year-old man, marking the first time that proceeds of crime legislation have been used to seize cryptocurrency as physical cash.

The case was settled at the High Court in Edinburgh on Friday.

John Ross Rennie, of Cambuslang, was convicted of possessing stolen goods following a violent robbery in Blantyre, southeast of Glasgow, in March 2020.

The court heard last year how three men carried out a home invasion during which the victim woke to find a man standing over him brandishing a machete and ordering him to transfer 23.5 Bitcoin, then valued at £109,601.

During the attack, a woman at the property was repeatedly struck with a personalized Toblerone bar and bundled into a bedroom, while the assailant made a “throat-slitting gesture” with the bloodied chocolate bar before fleeing.

Although Rennie denied any involvement in the robbery, he was said to be the “technical brains” of the operation, providing instructions on how to transfer the cryptocurrency, BBC reported earlier this week.

Despite his role in the crime, Rennie was handed a comparatively light sentence of 150 hours of unpaid work and a six-month supervision order.

On September 3, lawyers at Edinburgh’s High Court agreed that the Bitcoin could be realized.

The confiscation comes amid a sharp increase in crypto crime across the UK, with the Financial Conduct Authority, which oversees the financial services sector, now dedicating 30 percent of its financial crime specialists – 15.8 full-time equivalent staff members – to focus on crypto asset firms.

The UK Home Office announced new powers in April this year to enable law enforcement to seize cryptocurrency linked to criminal activity without needing to make an arrest.

The rules, which were implemented following last year’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, are designed to help to more quickly confiscate illicit assets.

Meanwhile, police crypto tactical advisers have been deployed across the country, leading to the seizure of hundreds of millions of pounds in digital assets.

In January, a joint investigation by the National Crime Agency and the US Drug Enforcement Administration into a drug ring resulted in the confiscation of $150 million in cash and cryptocurrency.

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