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Tim Alper
Author
Tim Alper
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Russian prosecutors say that law enforcers have discovered an illegal crypto mining farm hidden in a Siberian orphanage.
Per an official release from the Irkutsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, officers confiscated 96 mining rigs from a facility in the village of Kazachye, in the Bokhansky District of Irkutsk.
Illegal crypto mining appears to be on the rise in Irkutsk, Russia’s first and biggest Bitcoin mining hotspot.
Illegal Crypto Mining – Thriving in Siberia?
The prosecution service explained that an unnamed Siberian non-profit organization operated the “farm,” and installed the rigs in the orphanage.
The orphanage in question, a three-story building, is currently closed. However, it is still registered as an educational facility.
An Irkutsk-based court ordered bailiffs to disconnect the mining equipment and “stop the misuse of the land.”
Prosecutors said the farm operators endangered human life by “violating electricity and fire safety laws.”
Officers said the operators “did not carry out preventive maintenance” for the “electrical equipment and wiring” they used.
They also failed to install fire alarms and other safety devices, the prosecutor’s office added.
Prosecutors have opened a legal case against the head of the non-profit organization for violation of energy usage rules.
They also charged the same individual with violating the rules governing the construction and operation of energy-consuming equipment and breaking fire safety regulations.
Is Russia’s Mining Ban Having an Effect?
Crypto mining is illegal in many parts of Irkutsk Oblast – including the Bokhansky District – during the winter months.
But it remains a draw to both illegal miners and above-board industrial players because of its low electricity rates.
The region’s famously cold winters also mean that miners have to spend less on cooling fees.
But this has led to massive drains on the power grid in both Irkutsk and neighboring areas.
This, in turn, has led the Oblast’s governor to call for a year-round ban on crypto mining in much of Irkutsk until 2031.
However, these is little evidence to suggest that bans are having a deterrent effect on illegal crypto mining in Irkutsk or elsewhere in Russia.
Leading Russian media outlets have reported that illegal mining farm operators are installing equipment in apartments, private plots of land, gardening associations, and inside commercial buildings.
Energy experts have warned that many of these locations were “not built to cope with such heavy electrical loads.”
Siberian Energy Issues?
Last month, officials in the Irkutsk settlement of Markova uncovered a “mining farm” fitted with 150 rigs.
Law enforcers say that a “local resident” used a facility comprising four plots to house ASIC Bitcoin miners, using “illegal cable connections” to link to a transformer.
Other parts of Siberia are also promising to “fight back” against illegal and quasi-legal crypto mining operators.
Per the media outlet MK’s Tyumen branch, officials in the Tyumen Oblast, a region to the east of the Ural Mountains, say they will prepare measures to respond to a “rise in ‘gray’ cryptocurrency mining in the region.”
At a meeting with the Deputy Governor Pavel Perevalov, members of the Tyumen Department of Housing and Public Utilities, local law enforcement agencies, and utilities companies vowed to “prepare relevant proposals by April 1.”
