Illegal bitcoin miners almost left a Kazakh town without electricity

Tengrinews.kz - Illegal miners were shut down in the Kostanay region, according to the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
It was established that a group of individuals in Rudny were mining Bitcoin without the necessary license.

"Illegal miners consumed electricity equivalent to that of three district centers, 27 schools, or 13 hospitals, creating a significant load on the power grids. During the searches, over 150 pieces of mining equipment, ventilation systems, Wi-Fi routers, phones, and laptops were seized," the statement said.

A special FMA unit dedicated to working with illegal digital assets identified accounts on a cryptocurrency exchange where the illegally mined cryptocurrency was deposited, as well as bank accounts where the money was withdrawn.
According to preliminary estimates, the criminal income and turnover from illegal activities amounted to over 100 million tenge. By court sanction, all the suspect's property and illegally mined digital assets stored in a cryptocurrency exchange account have been seized.
FMA reminded that in the field of illegal digital asset turnover, seven convictions have already been handed down in 2024, with assets worth more than 1.2 billion tenge, obtained through criminal means, seized during the pre-trial investigation.
Earlier, 47 foreign nationals and 5 Kazakhstanis, have been detained. International fraud network discovered in Almaty.