The Malaysian government has just successfully destroyed a large-scale illegal mining ring, confiscating and destroying more than 2,000 devices, estimating losses of up to 723 million USD within 5 years.
According to Mr. Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir, Deputy Minister of Energy and Water Conversion Malaysia, the country has lost an estimated $723 million in electricity bills between 2018 and 2023, due to money miners Illegal encryption uses many sophisticated tricks to steal electricity.
Illegal activities are increasingly common and sophisticated in Malaysia. The subjects took advantage of many loopholes in the electrical system, even exploiting directly from power lines to avoid detection and avoid electricity costs. This problem not only caused great economic losses to the national electricity company Tenaga Nasional Berhad, but also seriously affected people's lives.
In October 2022, Malaysian police discovered and seized 2,022 illegal cryptocurrency mining devices, including Bitcoin miners and other electrical equipment, worth about 467,000 USD. Miners often choose discreet locations without electricity meters to hide their activities. However, with the development of technology, energy companies have been able to identify unusual electricity usage activities, thereby successfully detecting and destroying this line.
The Malaysian government has been implementing many strong measures to prevent illegal cryptocurrency mining activities since August 2019. Tightening management of the cryptocurrency market is part of the strategy to protect national resources and ensure business activities in this field comply with legal regulations. According to Malaysia's MARA University of Technology, cryptocurrency mining is not banned in the country, but stealing electricity for mining activities is illegal.
Malaysian authorities destroyed the excavators
In addition to cracking down on illegal cryptocurrency mining activities, the Malaysian Securities Commission (SC) also increased supervision and strictly handled underground cryptocurrency exchanges. In May 2023, SC requested Huobi Global exchange to stop operating in Malaysia due to not fully meeting business conditions. Currently, Malaysia only licenses 6 cryptocurrency exchanges including HATA Digital, Luno, SINEGY, MX Global, Tokenize Technology and Torum International.
