Accused pocketed £30,000 in sell-on scam
A THIEF who stole more than £80,000 worth of books from three university libraries, which he then sold to online book stores, has been jailed for 25 months.
Darren Barr, 28, targeted colleges in Edinburgh between October 2017 and September 2018 and pocketed £30,450 in the scam.
Sheriff Kenneth McGowan was told that Barr stole thousands of texts from Edinburgh University and Napier and Heriot-Watt universities. He sold the texts on to e-commerce sites such as Webuybooks and Ziffit for a profit.
But Barr was caught after one PhD student went to borrow a book for her studies.
There were supposed to be six copies in the library but none were available.
After buying a copy from Webuybooks, the woman discovered that the book she purchased had actually came from her college library.
This helped police build a case against Barr.
Sheriff McGowan jailed Barr, of Kinross, Perthshire.
He had pled guilty to four charges of theft earlier this year and sentence had been BY JAMES MULHOLLAND deferred for the court to obtain reports.
Passing sentence, Sheriff McGowan said: “What I have before me here is a course of conduct continuing over a lengthy period of 11 months, during which a very substantial number of books were stolen from Napier University in particular.
“These were of a high value. There was clearly careful planning on your part.
“In my view, a custodial sentence is appropriate.”
Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard between 4000 and 4250 books valued at £72,800 had been stolen from Napier University’s libraries at Craiglockhart and Sighthill campuses.
Inquiries into online book company Webuybooks resulted in the discovery that textbooks had been bought from the same person linked to the same bank account.
While the account was under an alias, police found that it belonged to Barr.
A review of CCTV footage showed Barr arriving at the library at various times with a rucksack and a hold-all before leaving and driving away.
The accused was arrested in September 2018. His car was searched and officers found a number of university textbooks along with a decoder and receipts.
His home address was also searched and a receipt for a courier found.
A courier box was discovered by the police and found to contain more university books.
The Heriot-Watt thefts came to light after a student couldn’t borrow a book she needed for her PhD studies.
Despite the system showing six copies were available, none were on the shelf.
The student then purchased a book from Amazon via Webuybooks, which had a Heriot-Watt stamp on it and a library reference.
The library concluded the stamp wasn’t theirs.
After police were called in, it was discovered an external user set up an account with the name “Alexander Barr” in October 2017.
A total of 230 books were stolen valued at £9200.
Edinburgh University later confirmed 26 books valued at £1000 had also been stolen.
Police discovered that WeBuyBooks paid the accused £10,612 for 1995 books.
Ziffit paid £18,600 for 4488 books and Zapper paid £1238 for 253 books.