Prisoner Jailed for 8 Years Over $2.7M Crypto Theft Plot Run From His Cell

In brief

• A Scottish court has jailed Robert Barr for eight years for orchestrating an attempted theft of up to £2 million ($2.7 million) in crypto from his prison cell.
• Barr planned for two accomplices to make the victim install AnyDesk so he could take control of the computer remotely and move the funds.
• The plot failed when the victims refused to open their door after spotting the men on their doorbell camera.

A man who directed an attempted £2 million ($2.7 million) cryptocurrency theft from his prison cell has been jailed for eight years by Scotland's High Court of Justiciary.

Robert Barr, 29, pleaded guilty along with Sean Favier, 26, and Iain Doyle, 37, to being involved in serious organised crime as part of the attempted theft, according to a sentencing statement published by Scotland's Judicial Office on Tuesday. Lord Cubie sentenced Favier to four years and Doyle to five years at the High Court in Glasgow.

"This was a crime which married 21st century computer sophistication with old fashioned housebreaking in an audacious attempt to steal cryptocurrency worth up to £2 million pounds," Lord Cubie said.

The plan, according to the court's account, was for Favier and Doyle to get into the victims' home in Midlothian, near Edinburgh, and make the man go onto his computer and download AnyDesk, a remote-access program. That would let Barr, who was serving a 21-month sentence at HMP Edinburgh for fraud, take control of the computer from prison and transfer the crypto to wallets he controlled.