Malaysian authorities destroyed illegal bitcoin miners

Malaysian police destroyed more than 1,000 Bitcoin miners. The authority obtained the equipment worth $1.2M and the court ordered to destroy the seized equipment.

Malaysian police destroyed more than 1,000 Bitcoin miners after seizing 1.2 million worth of illegal equipment. Authorities ignored the traditional method of destroying mining equipment. 

According to the Malaysian newspaper Dayak Daily, and a video, the authorities crushed 1,069 Bitcoin miners with a steamroller. They illegally connection of the equipment to Malaysia’s electricity grid, Sarawak Energy Berhad that badly affected the company with losses.  Notably, the company suffered a loss of almost $2 million.

In 2021, between February and April, the authority seized the equipment and at the same time they arrested eight people, out of which six were arrested for power theft under section 379 of the Malaysian Penal Code, six defendants have now been punished to nearly $ 2,000 and also eight months of lockup.

The court instructed, seized equipment should be destroyed and, the event occurred, on July 16, at the Miri district police headquarters.

Against cryptocurrency mining and its environmental impact, many nations are eliminating illegal mining farms. On July 10, authorities in Ukraine seized almost 5,000 computer equipment from an illegal mining farm in the city of Vinetskaya. Similar to the case of Malaysia also, Ukrainian farms had illegally entered the country’s power grid, installed in the unused warehouse of the Ukrainian electricity supplier, the miners stole enough electricity to leave the entire premises without electricity.

Similar raids have taken place in Iran.  In June, Iranian police seized 7,000 mining rigs located in a factory outside Tehran. Throughout the year the country’s government has carried out organized crackdowns on crypto mining firms.