Russia's Irkutsk intensifies crackdown on illegal mining, uncovering over 8,000 hidden mines

Techub News reports that, according to DL News, the state-owned power company Irkutskenergosbyt in the Irkutsk region of Russia recently disclosed that more than 8,000 illegal cryptocurrency mining sites have been discovered. To evade regulation, these mining farms are often disguised as chicken coops, greenhouses, forests, paper mills, or even abandoned gas stations, and frequently use agricultural electricity or electric vehicle charging as cover, causing significant losses to the local power system.

Since 2019, the company has filed a total of 2,170 lawsuits against illegal miners, claiming a total of $18.5 million. Currently, courts have imposed fines on about half of the amount, with some cases settled out of court. To maintain grid stability, many regions in Russia have taken measures to shut down licensed industrial mining operations and plan to introduce artificial intelligence tools to more accurately track and combat covert illegal mining activities.