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SERDANG: Three men and a woman were arrested after a Bitcoin mining operation at Taman Puncak Jalil was arrested by police for theft of electricity last month.
Serdang OCPD Asst Comm Razali Abu Samah said that the police, accompanied by technicians from Tenaga Nasional Bhd, raided three facilities along Jalan PUJ 3/8 in Taman Puncak Jalil on November 5 and arrested three men and one woman.
“According to our investigations, the men were caretakers and technicians of the Bitcoin mining operations.
“After further checks, we discovered that they had illegally connected electricity bypassing the meter to save on electricity use,” he told reporters at the Serdang police headquarters on Wednesday (December 9).
It said that checks at the three facilities also revealed 240 processing units for its mining activities.
“Investigations revealed that the estimated electricity usage for a location was about RM30,000, but they were only paying a bill of about RM500.
“We also found industrial fans in the facility that are used to cool equipment that is said to generate a lot of heat,” he said, adding that each processing unit was worth between RM200 and RM500.
He said that based on his research, each processing unit was capable of mining one Bitcoin every four months.
“Our checks revealed that the suspects had been operating for two months prior to their arrest.
“One of the suspects, in his 30s, has a history of electricity theft, mischief and had previously been arrested under the Crime Prevention Law,” he said, adding that the Selangor deputy prosecutor’s office agreed to charge three of suspects under Section 37 (1) of the Electricity Supply Act of 1990 for tampering with electricity supply equipment.
Bitcoin mining is done using high-powered computers that solve complex computational mathematical problems. These problems are so complex that they cannot be solved by hand and are complicated enough to tax even incredibly powerful computers.
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