- A former school assistant facilities director in Cohasset, Massachusetts has been accused of mining Bitcoin in the school’s crawlspace
- Nadeam Nahas is said to have installed mining equipment under the school and hooked it up to the electricity circuit
- Nahas’ operation ran for eight months until it was rumbled, police say
A former school assistant facilities director in Cohasset, Massachusetts, allegedly used the local high school’s electricity to mine Bitcoin in a crawlspace at the institution. Nadeam Nahas has been accused of stealing nearly $17,500 in electricity from Cohasset High School to power the enterprise, which included operating more than a dozen ASIC mining machines. The operation was unwound by the town’s IT director, with police alleging that Nahas’ mining spree had been running for eight months at the time of discovery.
Nahas Installed ASICs into Crawlspace
The investigation into the case began in December 2021 when the Director of Facilities was conducting a routine inspection of the school and noticed several things out of place in the crawl space under the school, such as electrical wires, temporary duct work, and multiple computers. The equipment was subsequently removed and analyzed forensically by the Cohasset police department, with the assistance of the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service.
The IT director soon realized that the items were part of an illegal cryptocurrency mining operation that had been attached to the school’s electrical system, and during the three-month investigation that followed, authorities identified Nahas, who resigned from his position when he was issued with a criminal complaint over the matter. Nahas was set to appear in court on Thursday after being accused of fraudulent use of electricity and vandalizing a school, but he failed to show, leading to an arrest warrant being issued for him.
School’s Out for Miners
Nahas isn’t the first individual to try and mine Bitcoin in a school – in November 2018 a Chinese schoolteacher managed to get away with using the school’s electricity to mine Bitcoin in an abandoned classroom for two years before he was rumbled.
