The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) has shut down the activities of illegal miners in the Kostanay region.
According to the agency's press service, a group of individuals was mining Bitcoin cryptocurrency without the appropriate licence.
It is noted that the so-called miners consumed an amount of electricity equivalent to the consumption of 3 district centres, 27 secondary schools, or 13 hospitals, placing a colossal strain on local power grids.
As a result of searches, FMA officers seized more than 150 units of mining equipment, devices for their ventilation and cooling, Wi-Fi routers, mobile phones, and laptops.
Furthermore, the agency identified accounts on a cryptocurrency exchange where the illegally mined cryptocurrency was deposited, as well as bank accounts used to withdraw the money.
According to preliminary data, the income and turnover from the unlawful activities of the miners exceeded 100 million tenge.
"By court order, all property and illegally obtained digital assets belonging to the suspect, stored in an account on the cryptocurrency exchange, have been seized.", the statement reads.
It has become known that this year, 7 verdicts have already been handed down in the sphere of illegal digital asset circulation. As part of the pre-trial investigation, property worth more than 1.2 billion tenge has been seized.
Recall that in early September, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated the need to "deal with" entrepreneurs who engage in cryptocurrency mining, consume large amounts of electricity to the detriment of the economy, and do not pay taxes in the required amounts.