[Hardware] Police were looking for drugs, came across a crypto-currency farm with RTX 3080

[FazzNoth]

Alors qu’elle enquêtait sur un trafic de marijuana, la police espagnole a démantelé une ferme de crypto-monnaie dans la région de Séville. Près de 45 000 euros d’équipement ont été saisis, dont de nombreuses cartes graphiques RTX 3080.

 

 

The case begins in an almost mundane way for the Spanish police: an overuse of public electricity in the city of Santiponce, in the province of Seville, puts them on notice about the potential presence of a marijuana farm in warehouses in the area. However, the preliminary investigation into this anomaly eventually leads law enforcement to another lead, namely that of a cryptocurrency farm: an unprecedented situation in Spain, where no such case existed until then.

 

45,000 EUROS OF EQUIPMENT SEIZED
However, the police made the expected discovery when they searched the premises: they found 21 ASIC mining systems, worth 31,500 euros, as well as a RIG mining system with numerous Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards, worth around 13,000 euros. This represents nearly 45,000 euros of equipment, with a monthly yield estimated at 3500 euros, mainly in Ethereum.

 

In order to make this very expensive installation profitable as quickly as possible, the crypto miners have chosen to connect illegally to the Santiponce electrical network, thus drawing up to 2,000 euros of electricity per month to power the cooling systems and the industrial fans intended to evacuate the hot air from their farm. More than the crypto-mining activity itself, it was the theft of electricity that prompted law enforcement to act.

 

"Investigators analyzing the material seized to identify those responsible for these facilities believe that these activities were in an early phase of operation, which is why the police intervention would have dismantled the activity before it became profitable for the organization," explains the official statement from the Spanish police. The minors themselves have not yet been apprehended: the police video shows that they were not present at the scene during the intervention.

https://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/1523089/la-police-recherchait-de-la-drogue-elle-tombe-sur-une-ferme-de-crypto-monnaie-avec-des-rtx-3080.htm