Crackdown on Crypto Mining: Thailand's Electricity Theft Bust

Thai authorities have recently busted a crypto-mining operation they believe was siphoning off electricity. Police seized some 650 mining devices in the raid from two provinces—Samut Sakhon and Ratchaburi—worth more than 200 million baht (about $5 million).

Heeding a tip-off about unusually high electricity usage, police from the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau and staff from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) obtained search warrants and inspected the two places.

It is from a temple compound in Ban Phaeo district with 187 crypto mining devices, including one stolen from an internet cafe. In another raid at a warehouse in Ratchaburi, 465 phones, computers, and tablets were seized, suspected to be linked to the mining operation.

Incomplete is not headlined without information on what the cryptocurrency is, leaving an inquisitive reader. Investigators from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) found evidence at both sites of tampered electricity meters that suggest there was theft of power—estimated at 5m baht ($135,000).

The arrested men were identified as Sombat Tangnawadee, Kiatkongel Tumthong, and Somwang (last name withheld). All of them went through the interrogation process. From this, it was found out that the group had actually been running the mining operation, but it had only been for about two months.

Sombat and Somwang, on the other hand, admitted that the two separate locations—Ratchaburi and Samut Sakhon, respectively—they manage, and, further confessing to having imported the mining equipment from China without permission and had the intention of selling it to the miners.

Firstly, to target this hidden mind, we will be conducting a global

Apart from the sale of the machine, police indicated that the suspects also offered hosting services for the miner's machines. This included the hosting of the equipment at 3,000 baht monthly and the 6,200 baht ($167) monthly, which was a cover-up charge for the electricity supposedly consumed.

Police disclosed that the locations had been investigated prior to any complaints being made in relation to the cloud mining operation. Clamping down on illegal crypto mining grows increasingly common. In Russia, over 3,200 mining rigs have been confiscated by police from secret data centers in Siberia earlier this month. In a related development, Malaysia detected three other clandestine crypto mining centers suspected of siphoning power from various sources of building lights in shophouses and even residential use.