Robert Barr, a 29-year-old Scot, was sentenced to eight years in prison for organizing from his cell in Edinburgh an attempted theft of up to $2.7 million in cryptocurrencies. His accomplices, Sean Favier and Iain Doyle, received four and five years in prison, respectively, for participating in an organized crime group. The plan was to coerce an entrepreneur into installing AnyDesk on his computer so the cryptocurrency could be transferred to Barr’s accounts. The operation was foiled by a doorbell camera, and analysis of Barr’s phone revealed preparations that included references to threats and violence. According to Chainalysis, these so-called wrench attacks resulted in the theft of more than $30 million in the first half of the year, and the annual total could exceed the $58 million record set in 2025. In France, several inmates are suspected of ordering kidnappings or extortion attempts linked to cryptocurrencies, including the kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland in the Cher department.
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