UK Police found bitcoin mine stealing electricity from mains supply

Police found an illegal bitcoin mine in UK while looking for a cannabis farm. The mine was stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the mains supply, said the police on Thursday.

The mine was located in an industrial unit on the outskirts of the city of Birmingham.

On May 18, the West Midlands Police search the unit in Sandwell on the clue of the property being used as a cannabis farm.

The police said that many people were visiting the unit at various points of the day, reported CNBC. Lot of heat coming from the building was detected by a police drone too.

The police said that these are the “classic signs” of a cannabis farm but when they entered the building they found zero cannabis and a bank of around 100 computers.

“It’s certainly not what we were expecting,” Jennifer Griffin, Sandwell police sergeant, said in a statement. “It had all the hallmarks of a cannabis cultivation set-up and I believe it’s only the second such crypto mine we’ve encountered in the West Midlands.”

“My understanding is that mining for cryptocurrency is not itself illegal but clearly abstracting electricity from the mains supply to power it is,” Griffin said.

No arrests have been made but the computer equipment is seized by the police.

Purpose-built computers are used by bitcoin miners to solve complex mathematical equations that in turn complete a bitcoin transaction. The amount of power used by the computers in the entire process is quite high.

(With inputs from CNBC)

Picture Credits: CNBC