Russia: nuclear scientists arrested for Bitcoin mining

Law enforcement authorities in Russia and Ukraine have arrested suspects on charges of using work (super) computers for Bitcoin mining.
The most interesting case was in Russia, where FSB intelligence agents arrested several suspects who had used one of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers for Bitcoin mining.
The scientists arrested for Bitcoin mining were using the supercomputer at a nuclear power plant.
The incident is being investigated by the FSB, not the police, because the supercomputer was located at the Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF) at the Russian research nuclear laboratory.
Sarov is an isolated city guarded by the Russian military, and only scientists and employees of the nuclear power plant are allowed to enter, leave, or reside in the city.
The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the supercomputer used for Bitcoin mining was a secure system and should not have been connected to the internet, due to the data it stores and processes.
The suspects, who apparently connected the supercomputer to the internet to mine Bitcoin without realizing it, triggered alerts in the system received by the institution’s security staff. The suspects were immediately identified and handed over to the authorities. The number of suspects or their names have not been made public.
But the arrests in Russia were not the only ones.
On Friday, Ukrainian police made a similar arrest. According to a press release, Ukrainian authorities have arrested a professor from the university in the city of Lutsk for using the computing resources of an institution for Bitcoin mining.
The video of the suspect's arrest shows that the suspect had set up a mini data center in his office, complete with several GPU mining rigs.
Such rigs are known to consume a lot of electricity and create a lot of noise, which seems to be the reason it was discovered and reported to authorities.
Watch the video: