'Technical brains' behind near £110,000 cryptocurrency raid in South Lanarkshire sentenced
The 'technical brains' behind a nearly £110,000 cryptocurrency robbery has been spared jail.
John-Ross Rennie was said to have had a "pivotal" role in the crime, thought to be the first of its kind in Scotland.
The 29-year-old was cleared of assault and robbery at the High Court in Glasgow but was found guilty of reset - the possession of stolen goods.
He was sentenced to a six-month long community payback order with 150 hours of unpaid work, to be completed within three months.
Rennie denied being part of a late-night raid that saw three men forcibly enter a house in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, and threaten a man to transfer his Bitcoin into another account.
He claimed he was forced by a "scary" relative to deposit the crypto - valued at £109,601.46 at the time - into his account.
He said the "violent" relative was not someone "you said no to".
Jurors were told the digital cash that ended up in Rennie's account was then transferred elsewhere.
The court heard that during the home invasion, on 18 March 2020, the victim's brother was awoken by his dog barking. He then spotted a man with a machete in the doorway.
The victim was then forced by another man to transfer the cryptocurrency.
A third man then threw a woman who was also at the house into a bedroom, after repeatedly hitting her with a personalised Toblerone bar.
After the attacker made a "throat-slitting gesture" with the bloodied chocolate bar, the gang fled in an Audi car.
Rennie, a delivery driver from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, was arrested months later and was described in court as having provided technical expertise to the gang in order to steal the crypto.
At the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday, defence solicitor advocate Marco Guarino argued that Rennie should not be sent to prison as he was a first offender, cares for children, and had a limited role in the robbery.
Mr Guarino pleaded: "This is not a man who is a risk. He is not a man who will be involved in future offences.
"He is a man who made an extremely stupid decision. He was a man who was beguiled."
Lord Scott agreed as Rennie's crime involved "no violence".
The judge said: "It seems to me that your role in what happened was pivotal, even if the jury decided that it did not extend to participation in the plan to carry out the robbery.
"Without the robbers' reliance on what you knew, however, it is hard to see the robbery being able to proceed or at least to proceed as it did."
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Lord Scott passed the sentence after prosecutor Stewart Ronnie told the court that the Crown Office had planned to launch a proceeds of crime action against Rennie.
The court heard that Rennie had "siphoned" off around £35,000 from the robbery for himself.
The action will call at the High Court in Lanark on 18 December.
Detective Inspector Craig Potter, of Police Scotland's cyber investigations unit, said: "This was complex investigation and the first robbery in Scotland to involve tracing the movements of stolen cryptocurrency.
"This conviction demonstrates Police Scotland's capability and commitment to tackling criminality involving the digital space and bringing criminals operating in this world to justice."
