In December and January, hundreds of pieces of equipment that were used for mining cryptocurrencies were stolen from the data centers of Iceland. As reported by the police, three thefts occurred in December 2017, and one — in January 2018. It's bezprecedenta in scale and daring series of robberies, the likes of which has never happened in the history of the country, said representatives of law enforcement agencies. The authorities did not make a public announcement immediately after the events, hoping to track the robbers.
11 people, including the security guard of one of data centers are detained in the case, but it wasn't succeeded to find the stolen equipment yet.
The first of the December robbery gone 600 cards, 100 power, 100 motherboards, 100 storage memory and 100 CPU. The cost of all equipment stolen in December-January is estimated at more than 200 million kroons (about $1.99 million at the current rate).
On Friday 2 March 2018, the district court of Reykjanes (region in the South-West of the island) first considered the cases of the detained suspects and decided to keep two of them in custody. A thorough review of the case is scheduled for a later date. While the investigative bodies are working.
"This is a Grand theft on an unprecedented scale,' said Olafur Helgi Kjartansson (Olafur Helgi Kjartansson), the Commissioner of police on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where there were two robberies. "Everything points to the involvement of well-organized crime."
Three robberies occurred on 5 December 2017 16 January 2018 in data centers Reykjanesbaer and Borgarbyggd, writes Icelandic newspaper Visir. The first of these areas is located on the Reykjanes Peninsula, and the second — also in the Western part of the country nearby.
In a small Iceland with a population of only 332,500 people there are many data centers of international operators. This is due to the low cost of electricity due to the large number of renewable sources. These are mainly geothermal sources (27%) and hydropower (73%), which almost completely cover the needs of the country. Another important factor is the cold climate throughout the year, which reduces the cost of cooling data centers. There is so much cheap energy here that the Icelandic government has announced a large-scale programme to build aluminium plants to convert a huge surplus of electricity. Negotiations are underway to build a high-voltage power line to the UK to drain excess capacity there. And Iceland's third trump card is one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe (20% rate). Plus huge free territories and highly educated labor force: Iceland on this measure ranks one of the first places on the continent.
Due to the climate, excess electricity and low taxes, many international operators are now building data centers in Iceland. This also pulled up, and the operators of the mining farms, who bottom themselves or rent computing resources for rent to other miners. The same company Genesis Mining claims that their farm Enigma in Iceland — the largest in the world in the mining of Ethereum.
They say that in recent months, Iceland has opened a lot of mining farms. It is probably difficult to find a region with cheaper electricity in Europe. Search query "cost of electricity in Iceland" — one of the most popular when autocompletion of the phrase "cost of electricity" in Google.
The authorities expect that during 2018, more energy will be spent on cryptocurrency mining in Iceland than on electricity supply to residential buildings. According to the forecast, the total capacity of Icelandic mining farms exceeds 100 MW.
Mynarski boom turned into the hands of robbers.
The beauty of stealing mining equipment is that it does not need to be sold. For anonymous money, you can simply use video cards for their intended purpose, that is, for the mining of cryptocurrencies. In other words, stealing video cards from a farm or data center is like stealing money from a Bank. Or you can compare it with the theft of the banknote printing machine of the Moscow printing house of Goznak.
Now the Icelandic police force tries to figure out the thieves by tracking energy consumption in all regions of the country. She hoped that the perpetrators will connect graphics card to power — and reveals the location of its underground mining. All Internet providers and operators of the outlet is asked to report anomalous activity.
| Question about me | Answer about me |
|---|---|
| My name & Surname? | Stanislav Osipov. |
| Where am I from? | Russia. Nyagan. |
| How many years? | 20 Years. |
| What are you doing? | PR manager, paid analysis of matches, recently started blogging steemit |
