Suspects in Tianjin's major electricity theft case arrested, stealing nearly 460,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in one month

A man rented a factory and installed more than 800 Bitcoin mining machines, hoping to make a fortune through "mining". In order to reduce costs, he stole electricity to run the machines. Recently, the man was arrested by the Jinghai District Procuratorate on suspicion of theft.

Previously, Bitcoin was very popular and its price kept hitting new historical highs. However, to obtain Bitcoin, most people need to start as "miners", so purchasing "mining" equipment for "mining" is the first step to enter this investment field. A man named Li attempted to make money through Bitcoin mining, so he purchased 858 Bitcoin mining machines, rented a factory, hired employees and prepared to start work. However, he knew that the "mining" equipment consumed a lot of electricity, so he planned to steal electricity by connecting to external lines privately. Later, Li bought transformers, high-voltage cables, etc., and began to modify the lines himself. After the first modification failed, he invited an "experienced" electrician to help with the modification. In order to cover up the theft of electricity, Li surrounded the newly installed transformer with colored steel tiles. After the mining machines were debugged and operated, more than 100 were connected to the original circuit and used electricity normally, and the other more than 700 were connected to the new circuit and operated by stealing electricity. As long as there was no power outage, these mining machines would continue to run. After the private connection to the power, the line loss at the location of the factory was abnormal, showing a sharp upward trend. This situation attracted the attention of the power supply department. Through data analysis of the power consumption information collection system and preliminary on-site investigation, the staff found that Li had stolen electricity and reported the case to the police station. According to the evaluation of the Tianjin Electric Energy Meter Calibration Station, Li had stolen more than 450,000 kWh of electricity in less than a month, with the amount of electricity stolen reaching more than 320,000 yuan. His behavior has violated Article 264 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and is suspected of theft.

Prosecutors remind: Don’t try to sit at home and work as a “miner” and make a fortune by stealing national power resources. If a large amount of public or private property is secretly stolen for the purpose of illegal possession, or if the public or private property is stolen multiple times, it constitutes theft. The public and private property here includes intangible energy such as electricity, coal gas, and natural gas. (Jinyun News Editor Liu Ying)