Power Company Tip Leads to Bitcoin Mining Raid

[BBmmBB]

Sad and funny story at the same time! That poor guy will go to jail for some weed but I don't understand a thing... Why did the police take the miners?
There is NOTHING illegal in mining! News still destroy credibility of bitcoin...

it's obvious he bought the dope with bitcoin, so that's prolly why they decided to snatch his equipment !!!? 

[wasserman99]

Sad and funny story at the same time! That poor guy will go to jail for some weed but I don't understand a thing... Why did the police take the miners?
There is NOTHING illegal in mining! News still destroy credibility of bitcoin...

He was arrested because he was found to be in possession of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia. He also is not going to see the inside of a jail/prison as his sentence of 6 months was suspended in it's entirety, meaning that as long as he stays out of trouble he will not go to jail.

I am perplexed myself as to why the police seized his miners as they are not evidence of any crime nor are they illegal to have.

I disagree that this will have any impact on bitcoin itself

[joesmoe2012]

If you are going to run Bitcoin farms it is not advisable to run MJ farms concurrently.

Some excellent words of wisdom.

[Classy]

I don't think it is fair that he got jail time just for that... It is unreasonable. Interesting share though. Thanks!

[freedomno1]

I'd be so pissed if they broke into my house with loaded weapons simply because the electric company gave them a "tip".    Those rat bastards got their money for the bill but then ratted him out.  It isn't their job to report electricity use to the police, their not cops, that guy should be suing them and the cops.  Cops are to lazy to do any kind of investigation and just kick in doors from miscellaneous tips.  What did they find computers and some weed, tax dollars well spent I'd say.

I agree they should've collected more evidence before going in, because is a large electricity bill really proof of guilt of anything? In this case, obviously it wasnt.

True enough a large electricity bill by itself is not a crime
Should have not had to declare any criminal charges minus that marijuana I guess still was overkill for the things he was actually doing.
But as for seizing the miners pretty sure they were confused when they tried to search it lol.

[snappa4ever]

I'd be so pissed if they broke into my house with loaded weapons simply because the electric company gave them a "tip".    Those rat bastards got their money for the bill but then ratted him out.  It isn't their job to report electricity use to the police, their not cops, that guy should be suing them and the cops.  Cops are to lazy to do any kind of investigation and just kick in doors from miscellaneous tips.  What did they find computers and some weed, tax dollars well spent I'd say.

I agree they should've collected more evidence before going in, because is a large electricity bill really proof of guilt of anything? In this case, obviously it wasnt.

True enough a large electricity bill by itself is not a crime
Should have not had to declare any criminal charges minus that marijuana I guess still was overkill for the things he was actually doing.
But as for seizing the miners pretty sure they were confused when they tried to search it lol.

You are correct to say that it is not illegal to use excess amounts of electricity. However this can be an indication of you doing something that is illegal (growing drugs in your house). Since the excess electric usage would typically mean illegal drug growing the judge was able to sign a search warrant authorizing the search of the residence

[BCwinning]

I'd be so pissed if they broke into my house with loaded weapons simply because the electric company gave them a "tip".    Those rat bastards got their money for the bill but then ratted him out.  It isn't their job to report electricity use to the police, their not cops, that guy should be suing them and the cops.  Cops are to lazy to do any kind of investigation and just kick in doors from miscellaneous tips.  What did they find computers and some weed, tax dollars well spent I'd say.

I agree they should've collected more evidence before going in, because is a large electricity bill really proof of guilt of anything? In this case, obviously it wasnt.

True enough a large electricity bill by itself is not a crime
Should have not had to declare any criminal charges minus that marijuana I guess still was overkill for the things he was actually doing.
But as for seizing the miners pretty sure they were confused when they tried to search it lol.

You are correct to say that it is not illegal to use excess amounts of electricity. However this can be an indication of you doing something that is illegal (growing drugs in your house). Since the excess electric usage would typically mean illegal drug growing the judge was able to sign a search warrant authorizing the search of the residence

I think it's close minded to think "excess" usage is automatically a grow op.
A person could be doing one of several things easily. all consisting of working out of their home.
Even doing some of these things for a hobby would make a meter spin hard.
a good compressor will eat up electric (woodshop, autobody, mechanic etc etc)
a kiln will eat up electric (ceramics / glass making)
electric water heaters are notorious (chandlers and I have no idea what else) a lot of hot showers hah
obviously a bitcoin datacenter
someone could even have a real garden as well. (not the kind in the topic)
It would help to know what they consider "normal" or "excessive"

[Ruthful]

I think it's close minded to think "excess" usage is automatically a grow op.

If the person had a record of growing marijuana  before it's pretty natural to jump to that conclusion, regardless of how correct that assumption is.it's  kinda like how excons got put into suspect list when related crimes occurred in  the vicinity.

A person could be doing one of several things easily. all consisting of working out of their home.
Even doing some of these things for a hobby would make a meter spin hard.
a good compressor will eat up electric (woodshop, autobody, mechanic etc etc)
a kiln will eat up electric (ceramics / glass making)
electric water heaters are notorious (chandlers and I have no idea what else) a lot of hot showers hah
obviously a bitcoin datacenter
someone could even have a real garden as well. (not the kind in the topic)
It would help to know what they consider "normal" or "excessive"

I think "excessive " would mean having a electricity usage far higher than  normal(maybe magnitudes higher than thy's neighbours).I agree any of the activity listed would trigger that alert.I'm willing to bet that even if his excessive usage were due to the other activities listed he would still be raided based on his previously record .Especially if he kept those "hobbies" outside superficial scrutiny.

[cyberpinoy]

I really don't understand why the some of the guys here on the forum try to pose always in victims of the system and cry how the government is raping their innocent asses every day.

The guy had a history if growing marijuana , he had drugs in his house , what more do you want.

So if a guy that has a criminal record for car theft has suddenly 10 cars in his yard the cops shouldn't investigate it?

So why were the miners seized then? if this situation revolved solely around marijuana, and past marijuana offenses got him here, and the warrant was specifically for drugs and more specifically marijuana what purpose was there to confiscate anything having to do with bitcoins, mining equipment, and what they referred to as "Physical" bitcoins.

[unpure]

The article makes it sound like the guy was arrested because of bitcoin mining.

[Ruthful]

So why were the miners seized then? if this situation revolved solely around marijuana, and past marijuana offenses got him here, and the warrant was specifically for drugs and more specifically marijuana what purpose was there to confiscate anything having to do with bitcoins, mining equipment, and what they referred to as "Physical" bitcoins.

I don't know about the law there so I can only speculate:

1)Mining equipment:suspicious looking, unknown machinery (I doubt this cops would recognise a mining rig beforehand) that may be relevant to the  illegal activity.Possibly they thought it was contained some data(if they mistaken it for some server/computer) on contacts.

2)Physical bitcoin: it it even looked like casascius coin it could be mistaken for token/chips that hold monetary value  used in the illegal transaction, akin to how authorities seizes drug money and assets.

[darthcoin]

To be honest I was really surprised that this didn't happen to me in my peak of mining. The household electricity bill went up literally 20x, and sat at that rate for about 6 months.

[niothor]

The article makes it sound like the guy was arrested because of bitcoin mining.

Which is not true

To be honest I was really surprised that this didn't happen to me in my peak of mining. The household electricity bill went up literally 20x, and sat at that rate for about 6 months.

Unless you already had a criminal record the police had no interest in you.
In my case I even had to phone the electricity company to change my plan and told them straight how much I'm going to consume per month.

[inBitweTrust]

Unless you already had a criminal record the police had no interest in you.

Or have no criminal record and have a hobby gardening too..

[knifeedge]

Charged with marijuana possession, and yet they confiscate everything bitcoin related.

[data_teks]

I'm waiting for the day when a large miner with no criminal history gets raided like this based purely on an "electric tip" and they literally find nothing wrong/illegal but someone ends up getting shot.

[Bizzaran]

Charged with marijuana possession, and yet they confiscate everything bitcoin related.

I'm really interested if he'll get that stuff back.

[BCwinning]

I think it's close minded to think "excess" usage is automatically a grow op.

If the person had a record of growing marijuana  before it's pretty natural to jump to that conclusion, regardless of how correct that assumption is.it's  kinda like how excons got put into suspect list when related crimes occurred in  the vicinity.

A person could be doing one of several things easily. all consisting of working out of their home.
Even doing some of these things for a hobby would make a meter spin hard.
a good compressor will eat up electric (woodshop, autobody, mechanic etc etc)
a kiln will eat up electric (ceramics / glass making)
electric water heaters are notorious (chandlers and I have no idea what else) a lot of hot showers hah
obviously a bitcoin datacenter
someone could even have a real garden as well. (not the kind in the topic)
It would help to know what they consider "normal" or "excessive"

I think "excessive " would mean having a electricity usage far higher than  normal(maybe magnitudes higher than thy's neighbours).I agree any of the activity listed would trigger that alert.I'm willing to bet that even if his excessive usage were due to the other activities listed he would still be raided based on his previously record .Especially if he kept those "hobbies" outside superficial scrutiny.

He wasn't busted for growing but for possession of a 1/2 pound which is a big difference.
THerefore there wasn't probable cause that he was growing because he had possesion before.
If they caught him growing before ok but they didn't.
And really sherlock no shit "excessive" is more than "normal". Even I knew that.

[Ruthful]

He wasn't busted for growing but for possession of a 1/2 pound which is a big difference.
THerefore there wasn't probable cause that he was growing because he had possesion before.

It's not uncommon for previous criminal to "progress" onto the a higher tier of  action once they grew in confidence/experience(pretty much how most serious offenders evolve/devolve) .Its is still logical to assume that someone with a criminal record of possesing marijuana would want to attempt growing them as a next step  and the  sudden unexplainable rise in power  usage could be indicative of that.

Charged with marijuana possession, and yet they confiscate everything bitcoin related.

As somebody already stated:it's not uncommon to law enforcement to seize the asset(cash, gold,gambling chips etc) that they suspected were involved with illegal activities and thing that may contain incriminating data/evidence like computers( it's easy to see how the mining rig comes to play).


This story isn't about a bitcoin mining bust and it never was.The OP should really change the title to be not so misleading.

[BBmmBB]

HIDE THE BUTTERFLY LABS MACHINES!!!!!!!! 

http://wtfrly.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/brazil_cops.jpg