You've Heard of People Dancing on Graves, but Have You Heard of People Mining on Graves?
Theft of electricity for mining has become popular in many places in recent years. Recently, another case of theft of electricity for mining was exposed in Daqing, Heilongjiang, and it was covered by a "grave mound". It really took great pains to mine.
20 days after Bitcoin's third halving,Bitcoin price returns to $10,000 today.A recent high.
Since the birth of Bitcoin in 2009, when its price exceeded $20,000 in 2017, a mining craze has emerged both at home and abroad.In order to reduce costs, stealing electricity and using it for mining has become a way for many people to make money.
Miners in Heilongjiang use fake graves as cover
On May 26, based on electricity data provided by the oil field, the Daqing police in Heilongjiang suspected that there was an electricity theft den near a village.
When the investigators arrived at the suspected location,Two "graves" were found in the nearby woods, but there were no tombstones.And about 11 meters away from the grave, there is a pile of straw and firewood.
This aroused the suspicion of the criminal investigators, because the firewood piles should be near the villagers' residences for easy use in making fires, and it was very unusual to have the firewood piles in the woods.
Sure enough, after removing the firewood pile, the criminal investigation personnel discovered a tunnel entrance.It turns out that the illegal mine is located under the "grave".
Based on the direction of the cables, the police discovered that this den was most likely stealing electricity from the oil fields to conduct illegal Bitcoin mining.
The total number of 24 mining machinesThe police did not mention the specific model. But from the video, we can see that each mining machine has two exhaust fans. According to this model, the power consumption of a mining machine will be around 2000W-3000W. According to the minimum power consumption of 2000W, these 24 machines steal 1152 kWh of electricity a day, and 34560 kWh of electricity a month.
2 (kW/h) * 24 (h) * 24 (units) = 1152 (kW/h)
Calculated based on a cost of 0.3 yuan, the illegal electricity usage amounted to more than 10,000 yuan per month. As for the specific illegal income, it is difficult to say.
Daqing and Tangshan are the most prone to stealing electricity for mining
In the mining process, electricity is the biggest cost.
Electricity costs account for 60% or even more of the mining cost, so many miners take risks to steal electricity to mine in order to reduce costs. After the electricity cost is reduced to 0, mining will become a huge profit.
In December 2017, the price of Bitcoin soared to its highest point since its birth, $20,052, an increase of more than 20 times. As a result, the activities of stealing electricity for mining also surged.
According to statistics, these electricity theft incidents occurred in six provinces: Heilongjiang, Hebei, Liaoning, Hubei, Shanxi and Anhui.
Among them, the most cases of stealing electricity for mining occurred in Heilongjiang Province.What’s interesting is that all these cases are concentrated in Daqing, and the mining locations are very magical, such as fish ponds, electrical repair factories, and underground stadiums…
Just before this "grave mining", on April 24, the Fifth Criminal Investigation Team of the Oilfield Branch of the Daqing Public Security Bureau reported based on clues that someone had privately connected to the oilfield electricity near the First Oil Production Team of the Ninth District of the First Mine of the Fifth Oil Production Plant to mine Bitcoin.It was discovered that there was a hideout underneath the doghouse, which contained 54 Bitcoin mining machines that were illegally stealing electricity for mining.
A miner told reporters:"In Daqing, many miners are frantically stealing electricity. Nine of them have been sentenced, but there are countless others who have been caught but not sentenced."
In addition to Daqing, another city where stealing electricity for mining is popular is Tangshan.
It is understood that these cities have one thing in common:There may be oil fields or coal mines, and the resources are abundant and easy to obtain.
Take Daqing as an example. "Daqing's oil wells are scattered, and many are in remote villages, lacking supervision," said a miner. "It is not easy to be discovered if you lay wires on the high-voltage wires of the oil wells."
Stealing electricity for mining: Confirmed as theft and illegal profit
The local authorities will certainly not sit idly by and watch the almost crazy behavior of stealing electricity for mining.
In December 2018, Daqing launched a special campaign against electricity theft. From December 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019,The most stringent special operation in history to "crack down on and rectify criminal activities in the oil field and illegal activities of stealing electricity and oil in winter" has been launched.
Electricity theft and illegally mined Bitcoin will be classified as theft and illegal profit respectively.
The sentencing for stealing electricity for mining will be based on the facts of the crime, the nature and circumstances of the crime, and the degree of harm to society.
According to the Criminal Law, if an individual steals public or private property with a value of RMB 1,000 to RMB 3,000 or more, it is considered a "relatively large amount"; if an individual steals public or private property with a value of RMB 3,000 to RMB 100,000 or more, it is considered a "huge amount"; if an individual steals public or private property with a value of RMB 300,000 to RMB 500,000 or more, it is considered an "especially huge amount."
The police did some calculations. If a mining machine consumes more than 20 kWh of electricity for 24 hours a day, and each kWh costs 0.5 yuan, the daily electricity bill is 12 yuan, which is 360 yuan a month. So 1,000 machines would cost 360,000 yuan in electricity bills, which is already considered an "extremely large amount."
We found on the Judgment Documents website that searching for "virtual currency" yielded 3,615 criminal judgments.Searching for the keywords "virtual currency" + "electricity theft", a total of 21 criminal judgments were found.
For example, one of the verdicts showed that Pei and Wang in Tangshan stole 790 mining machines, with a total value of more than 260,000 yuan.
It was finally determined that the defendant Pei committed the crime of theft.Sentenced to 4 years and 5 months in prison and fined RMB 70,000;The defendant Wang was convicted of theft and sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of RMB 70,000;
In December 2019, Zhenjiang City was involved in a major case of stealing electricity for mining. The principal offender was involved in a case involving more than 13.78 million yuan. In addition to returning the stolen money,The main culprit was also sentenced to 13 years in prison and fined RMB 300,000.
As the domestic supervision is strengthened, many miners have gone abroad to steal electricity for mining. However, once theft of electricity for mining is discovered, the consequences have already been seen. Therefore, miners should not test the edge of danger and mine legally.
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