Dagestan Authorities Seize Over 1,500 Crypto Mining Rigs in Crackdown
According to Tass, officers from Dagestan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service discovered a vast crypto mining farm in Makhachkala, the Russian republic’s capital city. According to an information release, the agency confiscated 1,476 devices that create virtual money. According to the firm, the proprietors of the unlawful facility have also been providing services to other miners, such as building mining rigs, connecting them to the electric grid, and providing security. Experts are currently attempting to determine the market value of the stolen mining gadget as well as the quantity of energy used.
The law enforcement officials who raided the crypto farm also stated that they are gathering evidence to charge the operators under Part 2 of Art. 171 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code, “Illegal entrepreneurship,” and Part 2 of Art. 165, “Property damage caused by deception or abuse of trust.”Dagestan, along with Russian areas such as Krasnoyarsk Krai and Irkutsk Oblast which have maintained cheap energy tariffs, has been a hotbed for illicit and home crypto mining in recent years. As a result, they have experienced blackouts as a result of breakdowns, particularly in residential areas where electrical networks are not designed to handle the increased loads.
In another example, the local power grid operator and distributor, Rosseti Severniy Kavkaz, recently discovered 95 rigs minting bitcoin at a Makhachkala Vodokanal plant. At the Vuzovskoe Ozero pumping station, the hardware was installed in a metal container. The crypto farm had a 260 kW power capacity, and its illegal electricity consumption exceeded 4.5 million kWh, worth more than 26 million rubles (over $400,000). Authorities in Moscow have taken steps to regulate cryptocurrency mining as a business activity, with Russia having certain advantages such as cheap energy sources and favorable climatic conditions.
