Agents of the Higher Police Headquarters of The Rioja have arrested, within the so-called Operation Cave, a man, of Pakistani origin and 33 years old, as the alleged perpetrator of a crime of electricity fraud for defrauding more than 70,000 euros to the electricity company with illegal connections to feed two ‘cryptocurrency farms’ that it owned in two warehouses in a industrial estate in Logroño.
According to the National Police, the illicit activity began in the months of July and August of last year 2023 because the detainee had made several connections to the electrical current. The activity of mining cryptocurrencies is legalthere is no law that prohibits it, what is criminal are illegal hookups.
Initial investigations were carried out due to the existence of unusual consumption peaks and that could give rise to a possible marijuana plantation indoor.
Servers, hard drives and cooling systems
Once the first checks and police actions had been carried out, the agents realized that these signs did not correspond to an illegal cultivation of marijuana, but rather to facilities that were housed inside. large number of computer servers, hard drives and cooling systems to mine cryptocurrencies.
It is a physical or virtual space in which the entire mining process takes place. This process involves the use of electronic devices and these perform complex calculations to verify transactions in a crypto network. To carry out the process, it is necessary to use high-powered equipment that solves complex mathematical problems.
Every time one is solved, a new block is added to the blockchain where transactions are recorded. Miners’ work is rewarded with commissions in cryptocurrencies for the transactions carried out.
police device
Last Thursday, an entry and search was carried out in the first warehouse, discovering the first of the farms and verifying the existence of the crime of fraud of electrical fluid. The device was carried out with technicians from the electricity company who proceeded to cut the illegal connections that had been made both in the boxes on the walls of the warehouses and underground. Later in a second record, the existence of the second of the cryptocurrency farms was proven in the same polygon.
Likewise, a record was kept of various computer equipment, such as 137 water-cooled computer servers for hosting (website hosting services), 189 graphics cards with their respective motherboards and remains of elements for mining coins, 24 differentials connected to the equipment, 10 fans and a water pump and one more large fan to cool the circuits so that they would not overheat.
Modus operandi
The detainee had illegally connected electrical fluid to existing underground connections and to boxes located on public roads, having to do masonry work so that these were sufficiently sealed and worked properly. In this way, all the electronic devices that he owned in the two industrial warehouses were powered by illegally obtained energy.
This is a man, born in Pakistan, 33 years old and currently residing in Logroño who had a previous police record, for a crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets and fraud of the year 2023. Likewise, investigations continue their course in case there is any type of tax crime.
