Seven People Charged for Crimes Against Iceland’s Mining Facility, Amounting to Over $871,000

The mining facilities in Iceland recently experienced a major heist involving conspiracy, burglary, and theft. This heist led police to charge seven individuals under those allegations, to which the mining facility is seeking $871,000 for retribution of the stolen goods. However, this group is also being charged by three mining firms involved for $1.7 million, though they are separate.

The first of the individuals arrested includes Sindry Thor Stefansson, who was originally arrested in April for the theft of mining equipment in the country. Based on translated court documents, another six individuals were tied into the charges, which is a total of ten criminal counts. The full charges include “possession of weapons, cocaine, and theft of over $2 million USD worth of mining computers and equipment,” based on a report from Bitcoin News.

The gear along amounts to $871,819. Once indicted, the arrested parties will have a trial, where the law firms of the three mining facilities. Apparently, the goal was to rob Bitcoin mines specifically, following their first heist on December 5th last year, during which time they managed to steal 100 mining rigs. They first stole from Algrim Consulting, and they followed the endeavor with an attempt on Borealis Data Center but set off an alarm. A few days later, they attacked again, but still failed.

Bitcoin News continued, saying,

“Following the BDC attempts, Stefansson, Viktori Inga, Peter Stanislav, and Matthíasi Jóni robbed the VK data center in Borgarnes and made off with 28 Bitmain Antminers. After the successful score at the Borgarnes mine, the crew attempts to rob BDC again the day after Christmas, and one of the suspects managed to make it inside the facility. However, once again the BDC alarms scare the gang of thieves away.”

In the documents secured by a columnist at Modern Consensus, it seems that the original group of four added three more people in January to take on the Advania mines, where they stole 225 Bitmain mining rigs. The report, according to Bitcoin News, indicates,

“The ‘inside man’ gave the thieves a security access code and a layout of Advania’s floor plan. Iceland police arrested two members of the gang on February 1, 2018, with an illegal stun gun and more than a half ounce of cocaine. From that point, one of the suspects purportedly turned on Stefansson and his gang, so the police were able to track down each member of the group following the first two arrests.”

A legal expert in Iceland said that the prosecutors from the different mining rig companies are trying to collaborate. The crew is being prosecuted for the successful robberies, but the burglary and conspiracy charges are due to the failed attempts.

Interestingly, when this story broke, the crypto market actually saw some impressive all-time highs. However, it is important that miners work on securing their facilities better to avoid these situations in the future.