According to the Malaymail report, five crypto mining operators have been caught stealing electricity supply worth at least RM250,000 a month, Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) disclosed today. The illegal activities of these operators were discovered during a joint operation mounted by SEB and the Electrical Inspectorate Unit (EIU) from Sarawak Ministry of Utilities and the police. Throughout the two-day operation, the illegal crypto mining was uncovered at centers located in four different shophouses at Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce, Jalan Pahlawan, and Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman.
All five premises were consuming at least RM250,000 worth of electricity per month.
The electricity firm said in a statement that “at all premises, it was found that unsafe direct tapping cables from the main incoming supply hidden in the gypsum ceiling that was connected straight to the electrical appliances, bypassing the meter and avoiding actual electricity consumption measurements.” It was also revealed that the monthly bills for all the five shophouses amounted to just about RM800 to RM1000 despite having mining servers operating round the clock. Five police reports were lodged, and all unsafe connections were removed and seized as evidence. Since 2018, EIU, together with SEB, had investigated about 50 electricity theft cases relating to cryptocurrency mining operators.
Crypto scams continue to rise amid the pandemic.
Crypto scams have risen around the world amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, the FBI had issued a warning saying scammers might be looking to unleash a surge in crypto-related scams. Several countries also reported a rise in cryptocurrency scams that included a spike in ransomware attacks, Ponzi schemes, and other different types of scams involving cryptocurrencies.
There are different types of crypto scams that have become frequent, including fake giveaways, sextortion, fake exchanges, fake ICO’s, bitcoin recovery, video scams, pyramid schemes, and the list on. Earlier, accounts of several famous people on Twitter were hacked to solicit bitcoins from their followers.
