A group of Penza miners was accused of stealing electricity

In the Penza region, the police detained specialists in electrical networks and computer technology, who are suspected of illegal mining of cryptocurrencies.

In total, seven were arrested. Electricians and computer scientists, they say in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, mined cryptocurrency on the territory belonging to a farm in the Bessononsky district of the region. Even before the arrest, the police, with the help of a local energy company, established that the mining equipment was connected to the mains, bypassing the metering devices.

“In order to avoid detection of an illegal connection to the power grid, the attackers disrupted the operation of the distribution equipment at the transformer substation and on the reinforced concrete pillar of the high-voltage line,” the police say.

Local power engineers estimated the damage from two months of operation of mining farms at about 3 million kWh of electricity in the amount of more than 500,000 rubles.”

Police investigators opened a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Causing property damage by deceit or breach of trust by a group of persons”). The detainees were released home on bail. The investigation continues.

Recently, the court of the city of Syktyvkar sentenced a miner to two years of probation, accused of illegally connecting to the power grid. At the end of 2021, in Smolensk, the rector of the university, who was engaged in cryptocurrency mining, was accused of stealing electricity for 4.2 million rubles. Last year, an underground mining farm was discovered in a dugout near Kiev.