Malaysian Police Crushed Hundreds of Bitcoin Mining Rigs With a Steamroller

Malaysian authorities crushed 985 Bitcoin mining rigs on Monday amid a countrywide crackdown on electricity theft, which is sometimes associated with crypto miners.

The circulating video shows a heavy-duty steamroller slowly making its way over the mining rigs, in an attempt to destroy them—although many appear to have survived at least the first round shown in the embedded tweet video below.

An estimated 1.98 million RM ($450,000) worth of equipment was disposed of during this operation led by the Perak District Police Headquarters, per a report from the Malaysia Gazette.

The destruction of seized property comes as the Malaysian government attempts to crack down on electricity theft.

Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive activity that can rack up electricity bills to the dismay of those paying them, but also climate activists. Margins for Bitcoin miners are slimmer than ever, with the stress apparently causing some Malaysian miners to try and reduce their expenses in creative ways.

Over a five-year period, Malaysia saw 3.4 billion RM ($776 million) worth of electricity stolen by crypto mining groups, the Deputy Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir told local media. 

In a 2020 case, police explained that this was done through “illegal wiring” that circumvented the meter. This caused two mining operations to have a maximum electricity bill of just $14.48, despite allegedly stealing over $600,000 worth of power in the process.

All of the recently destroyed miners were the result of a year's worth of raids carried out in Seri Iskandar, a town located nearly three hours from the country’s capital city Kuala Lumpur.

Last week, seven people were arrested due to their involvement in Bitcoin mining activities in two towns near the capital city. “The special ops aimed to detect illegal Bitcoin mining activities that involve electricity theft,” Sepang District Police Chief ACP Wang Kamarul Azran Wan Yusof said in a statement.

Malaysian authorities have been fighting this battle for years, and this isn’t the first time we’ve seen such an outcome. Back in 2021, some 1,069 Bitcoin miners were similarly crushed with a towering steamroller after being linked to electricity theft. In that case, six individuals were arrested, fined, and jailed for up to eight months.

Edited by Andrew Hayward