The story of the Icelandic Bitcoin heist in which 600 mining rigs were stolen never stops unfolding.
Police in the southern peninsula of Iceland just sent an inquiry to Chinese authorities regarding 600 Bitcoin mining rigs that were stolen and may have possibly entered their custody last week.
Iceland suffered the largest heist in its history when Sindri Thor Stefansson and his accomplices broke into a mining center and stole 600 ASICs meant to mine Bitcoin.
The man was subsequently jailed, escaped prison, flew to Sweden on the same flight as the Icelandic prime minister, and was caught again by Dutch authorities in Amsterdam.
In the meantime, an enormous amount of electrical power was being siphoned off a portion of Tianjin, China and police were sent to investigate. They found a shorted meter in front of a residence and proceeded to apprehend the individuals responsible.
Inside the residence, they found 600 Bitcoin mining machines.
In total, these machines must have sucked at least 480 megawatts of power from the city grid, possibly causing brownouts or even blackouts in surrounding areas.
The Chinese haul caught the attention of Icelandic police, who are eager to return the mining rigs to their rightful owners, namely three data centers.
The owners of the equipment have been offering a total of 6 million Icelandic Króna (just below $60,000) for the return of their machines. There were no takers, but the police in Suðurnes believe that they have reached a “eureka” moment.
If the machines in China are indeed those that were stolen from the Icelandic data centers, they can thank the incompetence of conspicuous criminals for finally revealing their location. However, it does open the question as to how the machines ended up in their hands.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
