22 crypto miners arrested by Chinese Police for power theft
|- Miners had illegally short-circuited mains to avoid electricity charges.
- Police found 4,000 mining computers and described it as the most significant power theft case.
Xinhua, a local Chinese news agency, reported that the Chinese Police had begun criminal proceedings against 22 people accused of operating illegal crypto mining. After noticing and investigating an unusual surge of electricity usage in Zhenjiang, the Police found the facility that short-circuited the mains to avoid electricity charges.
The accused culprits had plugged the cables into a transformer station close-by after they rented nine factories with mining equipment installed in them. The Police went to the location and inspected it after a local energy supplier reported prominent power losses rooting from the mining area.
A thorough search resulted in the discovery of 4,000 mining computers which the cops declared as one of the largest power theft cases. This significant number of Bitcoin mining rigs caused an electricity bill of around 20m Yuan ($2.9m).
In addition to China, a few other countries have been focusing on cracking down crypto mining, which involves an energy-intensive process of solving math problems to add transactions to the blockchain. Cryptocurrency mining, by itself, is not an illegal practice. However, it's required for miners to carry out these operational transactions in compliance with rules and guidelines applicable to their local area.
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