April 25, 2018 – Police in north China’s Tianjin have confiscated 600 computers used to mine bitcoin after local power grid reported abnormal electricity consumption, according to a report by Xinhua on Wednesday.

“Eight high-power fans were also seized,” local police said on Tuesday, adding that “it was the largest power theft case in recent years.” The local power company monitored recent sudden increases in line loss on one electricity line, up to 28 percent at the peak, which was found to be used by suspects to avoid billing after investigation.

China was home to a plurality of crypto mining farms such as Bitmain before Beijing last year began to crack down on cryptocurrencies and later crypto mining.

According to a report in January by 8BTC, China’s central bank told local governments to regulate the power use of bitcoin mining farms to gradually reduce the scale of their production, which soon squeezed crypto mining operations out moving offshore or being shut down. And the central bank of China recently said that all ICO projects and crypto exchanges have safely exited from mainland China.

Bitcoin mining is highly power consuming which mainly depends on high-performance computers. The monthly electric charge of 600 such computers is estimated at hundreds of thousands of yuan. Five people are under investigation and another has been detained.

As per data on coinmarketcap, bitcoin is performing well recently, it is currently priced at $9,440.09, increasing by 2.24%.