In the basement of one of the oldest universities in Poland, smoke occurred in the ventilation shaft, as a result of which the fire alarm went off. When security officers arrived at the scene, they discovered an illegal mining farm.

According to law enforcement officials, the mining equipment hidden in the basement of the Faculty of Law of the University of Wroclaw was connected to external routing systems only wirelessly. The cause of the smoke was the fire of computer devices as a result of a short circuit.

The seized equipment was transferred to the Polish Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime, which opened a criminal case and is now working to identify those involved. In addition to charges of illegal business activity, offenders may face fines for theft of electricity.

This is not the first time that underground miners have installed equipment in government agencies. So, last year the special services confiscated devices installed in the ventilation shaft of the Higher Administrative Court in Warsaw, which resulted in damage of more than 1 million zlotys (233,000 euros or $242,000).

Earlier, Paraguay’s National Electricity Authority (ANDE) announced the closure of a large underground mining farm in Salto del Guaira and the confiscation of 2,738 cryptocurrency mining devices.