Village police in Iceland are describing it as the largest theft of its kind, if not ever, for the rural area. Hundreds of bitcoin mining computers were stolen from information centers, and there is worry the missing equipment could be used sooner than sold, providing a tidy profit for what authorities are exhorting is “highly organized crime.”
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Iceland Effect Have an Organized Crime Problem
Police commissioner Olafur Helgi Kjartansson required the Associated Press (AP) “This is a grand theft on a scale unseen rather than. Everything points to this being a highly organized crime.” Mr. Kjartansson was speak ones mind of four data center burglaries in Reykjavik, Iceland, resulting in 600 bitcoin extracting rigs, 100 power sources, 100 motherboards, 100 recollection discs, and 100 CPUs stolen. It amounts to 2 million USD in booty.
Furthermore, guard have pronounced the affair as “the biggest series of thefts ever in the North Atlantic ait nation,” according to the AP. Computers referred to as “powerful” remain at large, granting eleven people have been arrested in connection, including a custody guard. Two of the group are still in custody as of this writing.
Olafur Helgi Kjartansson
As Despatch.Bitcoin.com reported, Iceland has become a boom area for crypto depositing due to the relative cold (great for equipment) and low electricity costs. In fact, well-spring is so ubiquitous, the industry’s energy consumption is expected to be more than 340,000 households on the isle. And as bitcoin’s price stabilizes and/or rises, and its inflation rate slows by plan, mining needs ever-more powerful equipment to earn more profit. It ascendancy be incentive enough to burgle data centers.
Authorities worry aloud yon the rigs remaining unrecovered, as perhaps rather than resell the accoutrements, those in possession could begin earning bitcoin. And considering the digit of rigs stolen, the profit could be substantial.
Police are flouting the caper in an venture to bring wider attention in the country for internet providers, storage centers, and overdone power usage as ways of catching up to the perpetrators who operated actively beyond two months, beginning in December and continuing through January. Local agency also report at least one of the data centers, Advania Data, rely upon it very likely security camera images might give the long arm of the law enough clues to bring further arrests.
Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of Advania Materials, concluded, “I think it’s very likely that the information has come to the police officers.”
Do you think bitcoin mining burglaries could become a trend? Let us advised of your thoughts on this subject in the comments below.
Images via Pixabay.
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