The press service of Irkutskenergosbyt, the main supplier of electricity in the Irkutsk region, reported that 430 cases are now pending in the courts. Energy officials added that miners pay for electricity at the residential rate, which is lower than the commercial rate. Often such “crypto-farms” are placed in private houses, garages, attics, balconies, in the basements of apartment buildings.
Over five years, Irkutskenergosbyt has filed 1,491 lawsuits against miners. Since the beginning of 2023, power engineers have identified about 1,000 new addresses of underground farms for cryptocurrency mining on the map of the Irkutsk Oblast. The total number of underground mining addresses exceeded 5,000, the energy industry assures.
Recently, Dagestan’s investigative authorities revealed six cases of electricity theft by miners since the beginning of 2023. The total amount of losses amounted to 23 million rubles.