Malaysia is listed as the country with the 6th most crypto miners in the world. However, this creates problems, because most of the mining is carried out illegally.
The miners steal electricity to power hundreds (if not thousands) of bitcoin mining equipment. Of course, this makes the authorities often raid the illegal mines.
During 2021, 528 people were arrested and mining equipment worth USD 13 million was confiscated. That's a far cry from the previous year, when only 26 people were arrested with a device worth USD 301 thousand.
Most of these illegal miners operate in industrial areas, especially in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Penang. Because this area is isolated, so that local residents will not hear the sound of the fan from the noisy engine or the temperature rising.
Then, how can the Malaysian police find these illegal mines? They use drones equipped with special equipment to detect heat. Because, these mines clearly produce high heat from the mining machines that are lauched all day long.
However, the initial detection was carried out by the electricity company Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). They look for areas with high electricity usage but low electricity bills.
These "eligible" areas were then reported to the police for later inspection using a drone, to find the heat being released into the air, we quoted Mashable as saying.
If it has been detected and then raided, then the Malaysian government will give a punishment which it hopes will make the miners give up. That is by running over the confiscated mining machines with heavy vehicles such as stooms.
As did the Malaysian government in Sarawak in July 2021. At that time there were 1,069 crypto mining tools such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that were crushed by being run over.