A man was sentenced for modifying the electric meter at home to steal electricity for "mining". The court warned "miners": stealing electricity constitutes theft

Original title: A man was sentenced for modifying the electric meter at home to steal electricity for "mining". The court warned the "miners": stealing electricity constitutes theft

Cailian Press (Beijing, reporter Jiang Fan) reported that the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court published an article on its official WeChat account today, saying that virtual currency "miner" Hua Mou privately modified the electric meter and stole electricity by "using more and counting less", with the total value of stolen electricity exceeding 26,050.46 yuan, which constituted the crime of theft. Considering the circumstances of showing remorse, paying the arrears and violating the electricity fee, he was sentenced to one year and four months in prison, suspended for one year and six months, and fined 3,000 yuan.

The court said that in recent years, Hua had used a "mining machine" to mine virtual currency for profit. In January 2018, in order to reduce the electricity consumption cost of mining, Hua privately modified the electric meter to steal electricity. Fearing that the theft of electricity would be exposed, Hua contacted others to remove the modified parts in September 2018. After that, the electric meter had reverse current due to inaccurate counting.

In December 2018, the power supply company sent staff to Hua's home to check because they detected a problem with the meter readings. Although it was clear that the meter was broken and needed to be replaced immediately, Hua repeatedly shirked the power supply company's request to replace the meter, and kept his computer, which had 15 USB flash drives and 6 solid-state hard drives plugged in, running all the time.

In recent years, the hot market of virtual currencies represented by Bitcoin has attracted various "gold diggers". Virtual currencies are not issued by specific monetary institutions, but are generated through a large number of calculations based on specific algorithms. This process is called "mining". However, the cost of "mining" is high. It takes 38,800 kWh of electricity to "mine" each Bitcoin. Cases of stealing electricity for "mining" have occurred frequently.

In July 2019, the Dantu District Procuratorate of Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province, arrested 13 suspects involved in a major electricity theft case. It was found that the criminal gang had used thousands of mining machines to mine Bitcoin for profit for more than two years, but it caused a total of more than 20 million yuan in national electricity losses. At the same time, it also brought immeasurable economic losses to enterprises and many unstable factors such as production safety.

In October 2018, another man was sentenced to three years and six months in prison and fined 100,000 yuan for stealing electricity from a train for "mining". The man stole electricity from a utility pole to support his 50 Bitcoin "mining machines" and three electric fans running 24 hours a day. By the time the case was discovered, the man had mined 3.2 Bitcoins, making a profit of 120,000 yuan, and the stolen electricity bill totaled 104,060.32 yuan.

Since the beginning of this year, my country's supervision over Bitcoin "mining" and transactions has gradually become stricter. Many places have comprehensively cleaned up and shut down Bitcoin "mining" projects built under various names, and the enthusiasm for Bitcoin "mining" has declined.

The court said that in the face of interests, some people are willing to take risks and steal national power resources in order to reduce the cost of "mining". According to the relevant provisions of the "Power Supply Business Rules", "Electricity Law of the People's Republic of China" and "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China", electricity thieves not only need to bear civil liability for paying back electricity fees and breaching the contract, but may also be held criminally liable by judicial authorities if they constitute a crime.