Crypto Mining Rig Discovered Under Floor of Courthouse, Stealing Power

That's one way to stick it to the man.

Electric Slide

Unbeknownst to one of Poland's highest courts, someone was running a crypto mining rig directly under a government building — and stealing its electricity to boot.

As Poland's TVN24 reports, the rig's computers under the Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw were discovered at the end of August by a maintenance worker, prompting an investigation that revealed the nature of the operation.

According to TVN24's reporting, the most energy-intensive of the computers were hidden inside ventilation ducts. The system was reportedly pilfering several thousand Polish zlotys of electricity per month, each of which is worth about a quarter of an American dollar.

As far as who was behind the sneaky mining system, two "excavators" for the contractors that the government used to service its technical floor have been fired, and the company's contract was terminated following the discovery of the rig.

A judge who sits on the administrative court, which is the highest court in a separate branch of Poland's judiciary that deals primarily with business and tax disputes, confirmed to TVN24 that the rig had been discovered, but said that there's no reason to believe any data from the court had been compromised or breached by the crypto operation.

Keep On Mining

Though there's not too much more information about the rig under Poland's highest administrative court, this kind of crypto energy-siphoning debacle isn't exactly rare and has been reported all over the world as miners attempt to head off their spectacular energy costs by stealing someone else's electricity.

Earlier this year, the Blockworks blog reported that there has been a spate of energy thefts associated with crypto mining at the Malaysian state-owned Sarawak Energy facility. Working with police, the company found two rigs stealing electricity worth about $6,500 per month, which officials believe were working together.

In fact, this isn't even the first time such a situation has happened in Poland.

Two years ago, TVN24 also broke news that an IT specialist was caught running a secret mining rig from within Warsaw's police headquarters. As with this latest situation, an official from the Policja HQ said that none of its data had been breached by the employee moonlighting as a crypto miner.

It takes a very specific type of person to not only steal electricity, but to do so from a government building — though we're sure for those who do it, the financial rewards must seem to outweigh the risks.

More on mining schemes: Crypto Miners' New Hustle: Get the State to Pay Them to Shut Down When It's Hot Out