Bitcoin Forum

Two brothers in the Netherlands face months in prison after allegedly siphoning power to fuel a small bitcoin mining operation, Dutch authorities say.

The case dates back to 2014, when the brothers, whose names were not disclosed, are said to have been caught stealing electricity from a local utility provider in order to power bitcoin mining devices at a location in Rotterdam. Prosecutors said this week that, in total, the brothers mined roughly €200k ($223,000) worth of bitcoin prior to being caught.

According to the Openbaar Ministerie, the public prosecutorial service in the Netherlands, the brothers have both been charged with money laundering. One brother, who owned the property in which the devices were kept, has also been charged with stealing power to grow marijuana plants at the same location.

http://www.coindesk.com/brothers-face-jail-time-allegedly-stealing-power-mine-bitcoins/

The power part is funny, but three are some issues with this.  That is a healthy hunch of mining in a week.  That would have been a small warehouse of ASIC’s.  And I understand that the boys should get charged with stealing power, but the part about laundering money is just stupid. 

They mined EUR 200K worth of bitcoins, but how much power did they steal?
These guys have been charged with money laundering, so it is not just a simple case of power theft.

I wonder what brought in the most money, the weed being grown or the Bitcoin being mined. It is just stupid to do both of those

operations in one location, because both of them draw massive amounts of electricity. The red flags will be all over the place, if you draw

that amount of electricity from the same location.  ::)

Thats probably 3-400 bitcoins. Even starting in 2014 and with free electric, thats a pretty decent sized operation.

Did they just bypass the electric meter or what?

If they had stolen power and run an eBay store, the power would have been the only issue.

Mining Bitcoins in itself is not laundering money, unless that country has a different sets of rules like some. We should first also consider the rules of the specific country.