- A criminal case has been opened against two men who metro employees who set up an illegal crypto mining operation at a power substation
- The pair used electricity supplied to the metro company to power their crypto mining operation
- The pair have admitted the theft and one, a chief engineer, has resigned
There have been some inventive ways of mining cryptocurrency over the years, some more legal than others, but when it comes to doing it camouflaged it’s hard to beat the recent efforts of a pair of Russian metro workers. The two men, one of which was a chief engineer, were found to be mining cryptocurrency using electricity supplied to the metro line they were supposed to be maintaining, stealing almost $5,000 worth in order to power the operation. The pair, who have admitted the crime, now face a criminal investigation.
Crypto Mining Site Set Up at Power Station
The illegal crypto mining operation was carried out by the two men, employees of MUP Metroelectrotrans which operates the Kazan Metro, the underground metro serving the city of Tatarstan, some 500 miles east of Moscow. The pair had established a crypto mining setup in a power substation that fed the metro, presumably thinking that the extra electricity usage would not be flagged as suspicious.
However, it seems the men didn’t bank on the crypto mining bunker being discovered which it was, leading to an investigation by the Tatarstan Investigative Committee, which on Thursday revealed that it had opened a criminal case against the pair for abuse of official powers.
$4,700 Worth of Electricity Stolen
The crypto mining operation allegedly consumed electricity worth 352,000 rubles ($4,700) although it wasn’t reported how long it had been running. The audacious crypto mining plot is probably one of the most devious yet to emerge and probably would not have been discovered had the rigs themselves not been discovered.
