British police accidentally seized a Bitcoin mining base that stole electricity

Source: Sina Technology

Sina Technology News reported on the morning of May 31st, Beijing time, that recently British police accidentally discovered an illegal Bitcoin "mining base" while searching a marijuana plantation.

West Midlands Police in England said recently that the mining base was located in an industrial building on the outskirts of Birmingham, and miners had stolen thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the city's power grid.

It was reported that the police received a tip-off that they suspected the existence of an illegal marijuana grow-op in the area, and they subsequently searched the building on May 18.

The police said that many people would come and go in this Bitcoin mining base at different times of the day, and there were a lot of cables and ventilation facilities inside the building. In addition, the police drone also found that the building emitted a lot of heat to the outside.

Police believed that all signs indicated that this might be an illegal marijuana grow site, but after entering the building, they found more than 100 computers and no marijuana.

Local police officer Jennifer Griffin said in a statement that the scene was not the marijuana cultivation site expected by the police. This is the second cryptocurrency mining base discovered by the police in the West Midlands so far.

Generally speaking, Bitcoin miners use specially designed computers (so-called "mining machines") to run complex mathematical algorithms to obtain Bitcoin rewards. However, this process requires computers to consume a lot of electricity, so the cryptocurrency mining industry is an energy-intensive industry.

According to calculations by professional organization Digiconomist, the annual carbon dioxide emissions of the global Bitcoin industry are equivalent to the emissions of the entire country of New Zealand, that is, 36.95 million tons per year.

Officer Griffin said that cryptocurrency mining itself is not illegal, but stealing electricity from the public power grid is clearly illegal.

Police confiscated all computer equipment at the mining base, but have not yet arrested any miners.

Last week, the Iranian government announced a ban on the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with Iranian officials citing the energy-intensive industry as the cause of recent power outages in many Iranian cities.

According to Elliptic, a professional blockchain analysis agency, from January to April this year, about 4.5% of the world's Bitcoin mining activities took place in Iran, making Iran one of the top ten countries, while China ranked first, accounting for 70% of mining activities.

The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region reportedly plans to ban cryptocurrency mining projects and gradually shut down existing mining operations to reduce energy consumption.