Indonesian Police Shut Down 10 Bitcoin Mining Operations: Report

Indonesian police officials have reportedly shut down ten bitcoin mining operations after accusing them of stealing nearly $1 million worth of electricity.

According to a recent local report, the North Sumatra Police Force announced that it had raided a multi-site bitcoin mining operation spanning ten locations and seized 1,134 bitcoin mining machines along with 11 meters of electrical cables and various computer equipment.

North Sumatra Police Chief, Ergen Agung Setia Imam Effendi, alleged that the organizers of the operation hacked into electrical circuits to generate a large amount of Bitcoin mining machines.

“As we see here, this is a PLN box. But the electric current in it is not the actual current. They go into the box and measure it with a meter. Instead, they took the upper part, the place where the electricity is. It was taken directly from the pole and entered inside.

The total loss in these 10 electricity theft sites is estimated at 14.4 billion Indonesian Rupiah (IDR), which is approximately $935,666.

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This comes after a Chinese government official was sentenced to life in prison for facilitating electricity services for Bitcoin miners.

Yi Xiao, the former vice chairman of the Jiangxi Province Political Consultative Conference Party Group, was reportedly sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court for abusing his power at a bitcoin mining company.

Xiao is said to have operated a 2.4 billion Chinese yuan ($329 million) bitcoin mining enterprise under the corporate name Geumu Group Genesis Technology from 2017 to 2021.

Xiao gathered more than 160,000 Bitcoin miners along with other corporate executives and at one time 10% of the total electricity consumption of the city of Fuzhou.

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