In the city of Temirtau, Karaganda Region, the court found a man guilty of organising illegal digital asset mining. According to the investigation, the illicit mining farm operated for more than two years and generated income through cryptocurrency platforms. The court handed down a sentence and ordered the confiscation of funds obtained from this activity for the state.
HOW THE ILLICIT MINING FARM OPERATED
The investigation was conducted by the Department of the Agency for Financial Monitoring for the Karaganda Region (AFM).
According to the case files, the man organised digital asset mining without the appropriate licence from August 2021.
To implement the scheme, he purchased 156 units of mining equipment in the Russian Federation and installed the hardware at his own production facility.
The investigation established that the mined cryptocurrencies were accumulated on a cryptocurrency exchange account, then sold through the mining pools BinancePool and Litecoinpool_org.
HOW MUCH CRYPTOCURRENCY WAS MINED
According to the investigation, the total volume of mined assets was:
- 11.2 Bitcoin (BTC);
- 90.2 Litecoin (LTC).
Their value was estimated at approximately 185 million tenge.
The sale was carried out through P2P transfers, where the digital asset USDT was exchanged for tenge.
WHAT SENTENCE THE COURT IMPOSED
The court found the man guilty and imposed a sentence of:
- 1 year of imprisonment;
- confiscation of all mining equipment.
In addition, the court upheld the civil claim for the recovery of criminally obtained funds. An amount of 185 million tenge is to be recovered for the state.
The verdict has entered into legal force.