In the settlement of Markovo, Irkutsk region, employees of the Irkutsk Electric Grid Company, along with law enforcement officers, discovered an illegal cryptocurrency mining farm with over 130 miners. This was reported by SIA.

A local woman set up containers and trailers with equipment on four land plots. She illegally connected to an overhead power line and ran a cable to the transformer substation.

The total power consumption of the mining farm exceeded 2 MW, equivalent to the electricity usage of approximately 150 private homes. Experts estimated the damage caused by the illegal operation at over 12 million rubles.

Heavy-duty transport was required to remove the confiscated ASIC miners.

“Currently, the police are conducting activities aimed at determining all the circumstances of the incident. Following the investigation, the actions of the ‘grey miners’ will be legally assessed in cooperation with the prosecutor’s office under current legislation,” stated the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Irkutsk region.

According to SIA, since the beginning of the year, law enforcement and other agencies have reduced the load on the region’s energy system by 300 MW by cracking down on illegal mining. For example, one entrepreneur was mining cryptocurrency in the basement of an apartment building in the Kuybyshev district of Irkutsk. In the same Markovo municipal area, a private individual placed 96 ASIC miners on their plot.

Experts estimate that the annual damage from electricity theft by “grey” miners in Russia amounts to about 10 billion rubles.