In Brief:
- CPS arrested a crypto trader and miner for stealing £32,000 worth of electricity.
- The court sentenced him to 13 months and 2 weeks in prison.
- CPS said this is very unusual, bitcoin mining is a legitimate legal enterprise. Offender was simply acting out of greed.
A cryptocurrency trader in Leicestershire, England has been jailed for stealing £32,000 ($44,000) of electricity to operate bitcoin mining machines.
Sanjay Singh, allegedly abstracted electricity worth up to £32,000 at two Leicestershire sites where he operated bitcoin mining machines, per Leicestershire Live.
Singh has been sentenced to 13 months and two weeks in prison after being charged with two counts of abstracting electricity.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) noted Singh’s activities when it investigated a fault at a substation originating from cryptocurrency mining.
A CPS investigation found Singh had tampered with his premises’ wiring to run more than 200 devices from the mains supply through an unmetered fuse box.
The investigations showed that he defrauded the energy provider of tens of thousands of pounds of electricity.
Using computers to generate Bitcoins is the most basic form of Bitcoin mining. The process involves complex mathematical equations that computers use to generate bitcoins in a process known as mining.
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There is a significant impact of mining on energy consumption, with some bitcoin miners using less energy-intensive hardware to maximize their profits and keep utility bills low.
CPS (Crown Prosecution Service said): “This is a highly unusual case. Bitcoin mining is a legitimate legal enterprise. Sanjay Singh was simply acting out of greed.”
