Key facts
- Robert Barr, 29, was jailed for eight years for directing the attempted crypto theft from his prison cell.
- Sean Favier, 26, received four years and Iain Doyle, 37, five years at the High Court in Glasgow.
- The court said the men planned to make the victim install AnyDesk so Barr could move the crypto remotely.
- The couple saw the men on their doorbell camera at around 11:30 p.m. on April 17, 2024, and refused to open the door.
- Lord Cubie said Barr organised the offence while in prison using illicit means of being in contact or online.
Robert Barr, 29, was sentenced to eight years by Scotland's High Court of Justiciary for directing an attempted theft of up to £2 million ($2.7 million) in cryptocurrency while serving a 21-month sentence at HMP Edinburgh for fraud, according to a sentencing statement published by Scotland's Judicial Office on Tuesday, November 10, 2026.
Barr pleaded guilty along with Sean Favier, 26, and Iain Doyle, 37, to involvement in serious organised crime as part of the attempted theft. Lord Cubie, sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow, gave Favier four years and Doyle five years.
According to the court's account, Favier and Doyle were to enter the victims' home in Midlothian, near Edinburgh, and make the man download AnyDesk, a remote-access program, so Barr could take control of the computer from prison and transfer the crypto to wallets he controlled. The two men went to the house at around 11:30 p.m. on April 17, 2024, but the couple saw them on a doorbell camera and refused to let them in, the BBC reported.
Lord Cubie said the plan followed months of preparation, including identifying the victim as a crypto holder and gathering images of the house, pieced together from Barr's phone after it was seized in June 2024. Messages on the phone "plainly contemplated threats and/or violence," he said. The victim was a co-founder of a crypto startup who did not advertise his holdings but followed mostly crypto-related accounts on social media, according to the BBC. Barr's associates had already burgled the house in January 2024 and taken a crypto wallet but could not access the funds without its PIN, the court heard.
"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. Prosecutors described Barr as a "sophisticated cybercriminal" able to "orchestrate a level of criminality rarely seen within mainstream investigations." The judge said Barr had a previous conviction for a crypto fraud and organised the new offence while in prison "using plainly illicit means of being in contact or online," calling those materially aggravating factors.