police find mining farm instead of cannabis trafficking

British police have dismantled an illegal Bitcoin farm. The operation took place during an intervention targeting an abandoned factory. The police thought they would find a cannabis plantation there. 100 servers were in storage and mining cryptocurrency.

Perhaps this is the unusual story of the week. We are at the center of UK. More precisely to Sandwell, a few miles from Birmingham. Police learn that an old, unused factory is under suspicious visits all day. In addition, this warehouse has been modified: several ventilations were created in the walls and many electric cables sort of. Conclusion: the old factory is not that unused.

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Thanks to a drone Equipped with a thermal camera, the police also discovered that a strong heat emitted from the building. Hence the use of the many breakdowns mentioned above. For the police officers, only one possible conclusion: the abandoned factory was transformed into cannabis cultivation. Indeed, to grow the plant, you need light, water and a lot of heat.

The farm had a hundred Bitcoin mining ASICs

A search warrant is issued and the police enter the scene on May 18, 2021. But they are not facing cannabis plants, but a bitcoin mining farm. The heat captured by the drone is emitted by a hundred small computers. And more precisely ASICs which are easily recognizable by their design very different from the Rigs where graphics cards such as Nvidia’s RTX are installed in parallel. There were over a hundred such computers in the warehouse. And all of them were mining bitcoin. At 2,000 euros per configuration, that represents 200,000 euros in hardware.

No arrest took place during the events, since no one was present. But all of the computers were seized by the police. Further investigation revealed that ASICs were illicitly connected to the electricity network : the miners did not pay for the energy consumed by their farm. The police also explain that cryptocurrency mining is not illegal. On the other hand, illegally taking energy is a crime.

Source: UK West Midlands Police Site