An illegal crypto-mining operation has been uncovered in a police headquarters located in Warsaw, Poland. An employee working as an IT specialist was the suspect along with another associate who were both apprehended and removed from their positions in the police station.
While the operation was taking place in an official police headquarters, there were no uniformed officers involved or found guilty of participating. According to the Press spokesman of the Police Commander in Chief Mariusz Ciarka, it was a civilian IT specialist who was found guilty thanks to an undercover stealth operation performed by the police that week.
‘A civilian employee, not a police officer, attempted to steal electricity to mine Bitcoin. Unfortunately, this happened at a police site’, Ciarka said in a press statement. It was also said that the operation was uncovered ‘quickly’, although a specific time frame was not disclosed.
The suspect was able to equip police computers with specialized software and video card upgrades to make the mining and minting process faster and more efficient. While these efforts were successful, the police said that the suspect never had any access to official police files and the database was never breached.
Moreover, this person was said to be a member of a Polish Bitcoin-mining ring and was taking advantage of the resources around them. Soon after, another accomplice was discovered and both individuals are currently under an ongoing investigation to learn more about the mining ring.
Although cryptocurrencies are not banned in Poland, their unlawful use in terms of mining and trading underground is considered illegal. Officials are always on the lookout for underground mining operations due to their large consumption of energy.
Underground crypto mining operations are usually found in abandoned warehouses and other remote areas. There are numerous stories lately of illegal mining operations getting cracked down.
In Malaysia, the police found a mining ground that was illegally hooked up to more than 1,000 rigs in the electricity grid. Similarly, more than 5,000 mining machines from an illegal farm were seized in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. The illegal setup used nearly 4,000 PS4 game consoles to power its mine.
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