Russia: Illegal Crypto Mining Crackdown Intensifies as Officials Seize 238 Rigs
Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...
Russia’s illegal crypto mining crackdown continues in its unofficial Bitcoin (BTC) mining capital, with authorities confiscating 238 rigs from a community ostensibly dedicated to gardening.
The state media outlet TASS reported that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Irkutsk Region raided a “summer cottage village” settlement in Priangarye.
Officers said they seized “238 units of mining equipment.” They also claimed that the illegal miners had caused “damages worth over 68 million rubles [$758,000].”
The Committee said the mining rigs were “in the possession of” residents of the Angarsky Bereg gardening partnership.
The partnership is a non-profit organization supposedly comprising of agriculturalists working in rural areas.
Irkutsk Region (Oblast) is located in Southeastern Siberia. In recent years, it has grown into the de facto center of the Russian crypto mining sector.
This is due largely to its famously low energy rates, as well as its low winter temperatures.
However, in recent months, miners have been accused of overloading power grids, causing widespread disruption.
Power companies say that illegal miners, who connect to the grid using makeshift equipment, are mainly to blame.
They also accuse many individuals of using subsidized electricity intended for residential use to power their rigs.
The committee said it had launched a “criminal case” against the miners, charging them with fraud-related offenses.
Officers said the miners “paid for electricity at a discounted rate” intended “for household
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