Venezuelan Constabulary Bust Bitcoin Mining Farm For Stealing Electricity; Regime Claim Operators Linked To Shine Organized Law-Breaking Syndicate

Venezuelan police line convey usted a massive bitcoin mining performance inwards the province of Carabobo for stealing electricity. The investigation was carried out past times the Organized Crime Bureau of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB).

According to PNB statements made on Friday, the bitcoin mining devices - numbering 11,000 - were operational inwards a warehouse located inwards the industrial expanse of Los Guayos. Photographs of the mining devices discover that the grouping was using the PicoStocks 100TH model, developed past times PicoStocks using boards made past times the BioInfoBank Institute, a non-profit R&D grouping based inwards Poland.

The mining farm was overseen past times ii Venezuelans: 51-year-old Eusebio Gómez Henríquez in addition to 31-year-old Andrés Alejandro Carrero Martínez. Investigators convey alleged that the span is component subdivision of an international criminal offence arrangement based inwards Poland, which is involved inwards “money laundering, estimator crime, financing terrorism, electronic theft in addition to telephone substitution fraud, through the production of such a virtual device inwards diverse parts of the country.”

The investigation was initiated when officers from around other PNB partition began to noticed large crates beingness delivered to the warehouse. As the investigation continued, regime realized the mysterious crates contained bitcoin mining devices.

To evade detection past times authorities, Venezuelan police line said cryptocurrency mining operators oftentimes disguise their mining farms every bit information centers in addition to other internet-related businesses. According to the press release, the PNB is currently conducting several other investigations into digital currency mining farms inwards Venezuela.

Bitcoin mining has buy the farm a rattling lucrative line of piece of employment organisation inwards Venezuela due to the extremely depression electricity prices. Power costs inwards Venezuela betwixt 0.01-0.02 USD per kilowatt hr - a figure unheard of inwards the residue of the world. Even China, where electricity prices average most 0.11 USD per kilowatt hr inwards 2015, according to information gathered past times Statista, is expensive compared to Venezuela.