Hebei police seized 6,890 Bitcoin mining machines: Stealing electricity for mining

Not long ago, public security organs in many parts of the country, together with the national power department, continued to carry out special operations to combat electricity theft crimes and achieved phased results. During the operation, the Tangshan police in Hebei Province found that using Bitcoin mining machines to steal electricity has become a new type of electricity theft crime in recent years.

Since April last year, the police in Tangshan, Hebei Province, together with the power supply department, have conducted comprehensive inspections of 2,701 key power-consuming units, factories, mines, and courtyards, 3,061 businesses, and more than 70,000 electricity users in 1,470 communities and villages. During the investigation, the police first discovered the suspicious behavior of privately connecting transformers in a courtyard in a village in Shuangqiao Town, Kaiping District, Tangshan, Hebei Province.

Chen Jingbo, director of Shuangqiao Police Station, Kaiping Branch, Tangshan Public Security Bureau: We found two containers that were converted into Bitcoin mining sites. After investigating the site, we determined that the act was to steal electricity by using privately connected transformers to mine Bitcoin. At that time, we confiscated 1,906 Bitcoin mining machines.

The police followed the clues and seized three high-power transformers and 790 Bitcoin mining machines that were stealing electricity in a nearby village. According to the police, a Bitcoin mining machine can consume up to 40 degrees of electricity when it runs 24 hours a day. If an ordinary family of three consumes 6 degrees of electricity a day, the power consumption of the 790 seized Bitcoin mining machines is equivalent to the power consumption of more than 5,000 households a day.

So far, the police in Tangshan, Hebei Province have seized 52 high-power transformers and 6,890 bitcoin mining machines. The police said that the crackdown on electricity theft will continue.