14 DAY TRIAL // In what sounds like the oddest news to break this week, Venezuelan officials have arrested four Bitcoin miners and charged them with Internet fraud and electricity theft.
According to local sources, the four Bitcoin miners, three men and a woman, ages 23 to 57, have been arrested in Charallave, south of Caracas. The director of the Computer Crime Division of the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) states that the four individuals were operating over 300 Antminer units in order to sell the Bitcoins, Bitcoinist reports.
The problem is that they sold the Bitcoins on the Columbian and Venezuelan border in Cucuta, which affected the consumption and stability of electricity services in the area. Throughout 2016, the country has experienced numerous blackouts due to issues in the system. The severe draught that took over the land affected the output of the hydroelectric plants, which, in turn, created many problems, failing to provide electricity to the citizens.
How did they end up arrested?
Bitcoin mining requires a lot of electricity, and even though electricity is heavily subsidized by the government in Venezuela, resulting in minimal costs, the system issues have pushed miners out of their comfort zone and towards industrialized areas. Basically, in order to avoid the blackouts, they located their operations in industrial zones where the service generally runs uninterrupted.
Since one Bitcoin now sells for north of $900, mining cryptocurrency seems to be quite a lucrative business.
This isn’t the first time a Bitcoin miner has been accused of electricity theft. In fact, a year ago, one man was arrested and sentenced to over three months in jail on similar charges.
Antminer units can produce around 0.36 BTC per month, which means that with 300 of these units the team of four could produce over 100 Bitcoins in a given month.