Authorities in Miri, Malaysia, seized and destroyed 1,069 Bitcoin mining rigs by steamroller after cracking a mining operation that was utilizing stolen electrical energy.
Not too long ago, U.Okay police adopted up a rewiring tip-off, anticipating to bust a hashish farm, solely to find an unlawful Bitcoin mining operation.
Globally, cryptocurrency is usually permissible beneath the legislation, whereas hashish isn’t. As such, it is sensible that criminals are more and more turning to Bitcoin mining over hashish. Nonetheless, this does little to assist Bitcoin’s already doubtful status.
Bitcoin is the brand new weed
The joint investigation was carried out between February and April this 12 months by Malaysian police and the native power agency Sarawak Vitality Berhad (SEB).
Miri’s Assistant Commissioner of Police, Hakemal Hawari, mentioned eight people have been arrested for his or her position in utilizing stolen electrical energy to mine Bitcoin throughout this era.
“A complete of six folks have been efficiently charged beneath Part 379 of the Penal Code for electrical energy theft and have been fined as much as RM8,000 and jailed for as much as eight months,” he mentioned.
Hawari additionally mentioned SEB had misplaced nearly $2 million on account of the electrical energy theft. He added the drain on the electrical energy provide ensuing from the operation had triggered frequent blackouts within the space.
“The electrical energy theft for mining bitcoin actions has triggered frequent energy outages and in 2021, three homes have been razed attributable to unlawful electrical energy provide connections.”
Possession of 200 grams of hashish in Malaysia is deemed drug trafficking and carries a compulsory dying penalty. Being caught with 50 grams or much less will flip up a jail sentence of as much as 10 years.
Taking this into consideration, the chance of being caught illegally mining Bitcoin makes a extra acceptable proposition in comparison with getting caught rising hashish, at the very least in Malaysia.
Malaysian police present no mercy
In a moderately uncommon method to legislation enforcement, Miri police determined to destroy the seized Bitcoin miners by the use of steamroller. What’s extra, the occasion was filmed and uploaded to YouTube, attracting over 330,000 views to date.
The crushing passed off within the parking zone of the Miri district police headquarters. Stories point out the police collected the rigs over the course of six separate raids.
Neither the native press nor the police gave touch upon the severity, and arguably the wastefulness, of the crushing. However some imagine it was about sending a message to others doing, or considering of doing, the identical.
All the identical, with the lure of “simple cash,” and the comparatively lenient punishment for being caught, unlawful Bitcoin mining received’t be going away anytime quickly.
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