Squatting to mine: Russian dilapidated factory occupied by miners who pay no bills

Russian police in the southern city of Orenburg have arrested several people behind the illegal mining enterprise. Similar to how drug cartels find secret places to cultivate marijuana, this group has decided to use the buildings of the old factory they thought nobody would bother to check.

Little did they know that just like their counterparts across the Atlantic, Russian energy companies monitor power consumption and can pinpoint the location of unusual spikes. This is the most often reason why illegal miners fail, and nothing different happened in this case.

Intrigued by the power usage in the factory that was abandoned long ago, the company informed the local police. It quickly became apparent that the illegal enterprise never paid any bills for electricity and this factor is not going to help suspects in court.

The video of this factory shows several unusually giant fans built in walls and used to cool massive mining rigs resembling shelves. Miners behind this have come up with a relatively efficient idea on how to solve the heat issue. Judging by the scale of the enterprise and by the title of the video in Russian, suspects mined Bitcoin - simultaneously the most expensive and the most hard-to-mine cryptocurrency.