A man from Cohasset, a small town in Massachusetts, is facing charges for allegedly mining BTC in the basement of a local school. According to the city police an employee of the school became suspicious in December 2021 after noticing that various cables, computers and other material had been lost from the school inventory. The authorities got involved and found an illegal mining facility in a crawl space of the school building. This was connected to the school’s power supply. About $18,000 worth of electricity was stolen this way. Eleven mining devices could be secured, like that Washington Post reports. It is not known how many BTC the devices mined before they were found.
Didn’t show up in court
After a 3-month investigation, authorities were able to identify Nadeam Nahas (39) as a suspect. The former city employee was subsequently charged with fraudulent use of electricity and vandalism at a school. Nahas was due to comment on the allegations in court last Thursday, February 23. However, he missed his court date and now faces arrest. The competent judge imposed a default judgment.
Electricity theft through mining BTC is not an isolated case
However, the case of Nadeam Nahas is not the first of its kind. Bitcoin mining requires large amounts of energy. Therefore, there are always cases in which criminals try to tap into external power sources. In July 2021, an illegal mining farm was exposed in Malaysia. The authorities had the seized devices destroyed in public and literally flattened them.
Cases are also known in Germany. Authorities in the small town of Kamen in North Rhine-Westphalia were also able to secure illegal mining devices that the suspects connected to the electricity in publicly accessible places. However, no suspects were found during the investigation.
