Chinese police catch law-breaking cryptominers
Cryptocoin miners caught stealing power to fuel secret mining operations
Chinese police have arrested two different gangs of Bitcoin miners for theft of electricity.
In the first incident, six people were arrested after a power company in northern China noticed a sudden increase in line loss on power lines, with an additional drain on power of up to 28%.
Police investigated and found that the gang had hooked up over 600 crypto-currency mining rigs, and eight high-powered fans to the grid, while short-circuiting the meter.
The power lost was estimated to have cost hundreds of thousands of Yuan (tens of thousands of dollars).
In Hanyang District, a similar operation uncovered an illicit cryptomining operation in a disused house. Two men had broken into the empty house, and bypassed the power meter in a junction box to get free power for their mining rigs.
The electricity company said that the men had stolen some 88,000 kilowatts, worth $7,700, to power their mining operation.
