The courts of the Irkutsk region are considering 430 cases of theft of electricity for the extraction of cryptocurrencies for a total amount of about 350 million rubles. It is reported by TASS with reference to Irkutskenergosbyt.
Miners consume electricity in industrial volumes, but pay for it at low tariffs for the population.
Power engineers have identified crypto farms in private houses, basements of apartment buildings, in the attic of a psychiatric hospital, in a school, a cowshed, and a hotel complex.
In five years, Irkutskenergosbyt filed 1,491 lawsuits against miners, 855 of which have already been satisfied by the courts. According to the decisions that have come into force, residents of the region must pay more than 360 million rubles for stolen electricity.
In December 2022, Irkutsk power engineers reported that they were identifying facts of cryptocurrency mining in residential buildings in terms of energy consumption and changes in network load. Subsequently, these materials are transferred to the court for the collection of fines.
Recall, according to the calculations of the data center operator BitRiver, in the first quarter of 2023, the Russian Federation for the first time came in second place in the world in terms of the volume of capacities involved in mining – 1 GW.
At the same time, the Ministry of Finance estimated the annual production of cryptocurrencies in the country at $4 billion. Potentially, the industry can bring about 20 million rubles a year to the state treasury, the department calculated.
The bill regulating the industry has been registered in the State Duma of the Russian Federation since mid-November 2022. It obliges individuals and legal entities to report to the tax service on the mined cryptocurrencies, indicating the address of enrollment. Its adoption is expected in 2024.
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