{"id":817028,"date":"2026-03-10T17:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/817028\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:03:15","slug":"how-cowboy-bitcoin-miners-got-caught-stealing-energy-from-russian-village-dl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/817028\/","title":{"rendered":"How cowboy Bitcoin miners got caught stealing energy from Russian village \u2013 DL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"list-outside pl-8\">\n<li>Russian authorities have found another illegal crypto mining operation.<\/li>\n<li>The rogue miner had pinched electricity from the grid in Atamanovka, Chitinsky District.<\/li>\n<li>Russia last year signed laws to regulate the industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Russia is clamping down on dodgy crypto miners after formally regulating the industry last year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">But pirate operations are still going \u2014 and locals are suffering as a result. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">The latest: Authorities in the village of Atamanovka found a mining operation had stolen 711,000 rubles, around $9,000, worth of electricity from the grid, state-owned Russian media outlet Arguments and Facts <a href=\"https:\/\/chita.aif.ru\/society\/elektroenergiyu-na-700-tysyach-rubley-pohitili-maynery-kriptovalyuty-pod-chitoy\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">According to the report, energy workers had discovered damage to a metering device in a resident\u2019s home. After investigating, they found a mining operation had been using electricity from the grid in the Chitinsky District.<\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Reports did not specify what cryptocurrencies the illicit operation had been mining but said the offender would have to pay a fine and damage to the electricity company. <\/p>\n<p>Incidents on the rise <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Cowboy mining operations are becoming increasingly common in Russia. Just last month, police <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dlnews.com\/articles\/people-culture\/bitcoin-miner-stole-usd-80000-worth-of-power-from-russian-grid\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">arrested<\/a> a man who allegedly stole $80,000 worth of power from the region\u2019s grid to power his rigs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">The man had allegedly used a series of illegal connections to link his devices to the power grid in an outbuilding on his property, according to authorities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">And last year, cops <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dlnews.com\/articles\/regulation\/russian-engineers-use-ai-to-hunt-bitcoin-miners\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shut down<\/a> a sophisticated illegal crypto mining scheme that they suspect had been masterminded by the son of a former presidential candidate. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Russian authorities have said that illegal miners steal millions of dollars of electricity every year. <\/p>\n<p>Mining hotspot <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Still, Russia\u2019s government doesn\u2019t want to ban mining, but rather regulate the business. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Last year, President Vladimir Putin <a href=\"https:\/\/tass.com\/economy\/1826725\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signed<\/a> a law allowing cryptocurrency mining in the country. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">The law states that legal entities can only mine if they have been approved by the digital ministry; foreign operations have been banned from doing business in the country. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Back in 2022, Putin said Russia had certain \u201ccompetitive advantages\u201d in mining crypto due to the country\u2019s electricity surplus. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Russia is a big player in the Bitcoin mining business and currently supplies over 16% of the global hash rate, <a href=\"https:\/\/data.hashrateindex.com\/network-data\/global-hashrate-heatmap\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according<\/a> to Hashrate Index. <\/p>\n<p class=\"puppeteer-article-text-type-element\">Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dlnews.com\/articles\/people-culture\/russia-clamps-down-on-cowboy-crypto-miners\/mailto:mdisalvo@dlnews.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dlnews.com\/articles\/people-culture\/russia-clamps-down-on-cowboy-crypto-miners\/mailto:mdisalvo@dlnews.com\">mdisalvo@dlnews.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian authorities have found another illegal crypto mining operation. The rogue miner had pinched electricity from the grid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7655],"tags":[95648,188,332],"class_list":["post-817028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-russia","tag-bitcoin-mining","tag-crime","tag-russia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116205964762241356","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}