Razzia einer brasilianischen Bande enthüllt ein neues Krypto-Kriminalitätsmodell: die Umwandlung gestohlener Energie in digitales Geld

This has been going on for a long time and its not even done by gangs but regular people living in the favelas where power is stolen irrespective of it being used for mining.

The “new” part is probably not power theft itself. The interesting part is how mining changes the payoff loop. Stolen or subsidized electricity can be turned into a liquid asset without needing to move physical inventory, and that makes small illegal power setups much easier to scale or hide than a normal stolen-utility scheme.

It is also a reminder that mining risk is not only about hashrate and coin price. Hosting provenance matters: who controls the site, whether the meter/contract is legitimate, whether the operator can survive a utility audit, and whether equipment gets seized if the power source turns out to be illegal.

For public companies or funds touching mining exposure, I’d expect energy-contract diligence to become a bigger part of the risk review. Cheap power is great until the “cheap” part is actually legal, political, or criminal exposure being pushed onto someone else.