The police in Tianjin City in the north of the country have confiscated 600 devices, the Xinhua news agency said Wednesday. A computer that is used to mining the default baud currency, after the company running the local power grid reported unusual activity.
"Eight high-powered fans have also been confiscated," Xinhua quoted local police as saying, adding that this is "the biggest case of electricity theft in the last few years."
The reports did not mention the date on which these computers were confiscated.
China was the venue for most of the world's mining operations before Beijing started last year not to encourage the process as part of a broader campaign targeting the composition and other hypothetical currencies. The size of the mining activity that moved out or closed is unclear.
Reuters said in January that the central Bank of China had informed a high-level government group for financial transactions via the Internet that monetary authority can ask local governments to regulate the use of electricity for miners to progressively reduce production volumes.
The miners use high-powered machines to generate the enormous computational power to produce encrypted coins that are made through the solution of mathematical equations.
This activity employs a tremendous amount of electricity, which prompts operators to find locations where access to cheap electricity is easy.
Police said five people were under investigation and a sixth person was detained in the Tianjin case.
Sky News