Illegal Bitcoin Mine Raided (2021)

That's A Crime
Episode 08: Illegal Bitcoin Mine Raided (2021)

Jason Connell and Sal Rodriguez break down the true crime story of the Illegal Bitcoin Mine Raided in 2021. On May 18th, 2021, police officials in the United Kingdom inadvertently discovered an illegal bitcoin mine while looking for a marijuana factory.

Original Episode: S01E08

Recorded: 06-09-21
Studio: Just Curious Media
https://www.JustCuriousMedia.com/

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Transcript

Jason Connell: 5:52:55

Welcome to Just curious media. This is that's a crime. I'm Jason Connell.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:52:59

And I'm Sal Rodriguez.

Jason Connell: 5:53:00

All right, Sal, we are back for our eighth episode of our new show. That's a crime and I'm super excited.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:53:10

I'm very excited about this episode but this may be the first that's a crime where I'm gonna need you to explain a whole lot of things to me

Jason Connell: 5:53:17

that's okay it'll be an educational podcast for you as well. Yeah, cuz

Sal Rodriguez: 5:53:21

we're gonna talk about Bitcoin Yes,

Jason Connell: 5:53:23

we are. So on this episode we're breaking down the True Crime Story of the illegal Bitcoin mine raided from 2021

Sal Rodriguez: 5:53:32

What a present day headline if you throw in like KSI and Kendall Jenner to make it like more current, you know what I mean? But I mean, Bitcoin mine are we gonna even talk about what the hell is a Bitcoin mine? Oh, we're gonna get into that sound. Yeah, cuz I need to know.

Jason Connell: 5:53:48

And so I love actually, as I read this article, and I read it on a few publications, and actually, this came on my radar a few weeks ago, and I thought, Oh, this is fascinating. So this is very recent. This is like may 2021. But the first line of the article reads is sub cell. Police in the United Kingdom say they inadvertently discovered an illegal Bitcoin mine while looking for a cannabis farm. Wow. Nice. A nice twist there.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:54:15

I like that concept where police think they're looking for a and they discover b I love that.

Jason Connell: 5:54:19

Yeah. And then that's what like hooked me on the story Not to mention, I have been studying bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole and learning and it's fascinating what's happening right here and now. And then this article comes up. I was like, Oh, this is perfect. This is so great for that to crime. So we're going to delve in but much like your earlier point, before we get too far in the weeds of this story. I think we should go over a few basic definitions.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:54:46

Yes, please dumb it down for me.

Jason Connell: 5:54:49

So I got three here very basic. So listeners those of you who are well educated in Bitcoin and crypto please bear with us. But this is for Sal and anyone else who is unfamiliar.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:55:00

This is no this is for Sal. I know nothing about Bitcoin other than hell, I want to make some money. But that's all I know. Like, I want to make money in Bitcoin. I know nothing else.

Jason Connell: 5:55:09

So the first one is just cryptocurrency. Okay, so very basic, a digital currency in which transactions are verified, and records maintained by a decentralized system using cryptography rather than a centralized authority. So I don't know if that is too much or too basic or not enough information there.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:55:31

I was just going to piggyback on that definition of cryptocurrency by just going back in time a little bit to I guess, currency in general is because you say here a centralized authority, what our modern currency like let's say the US dollar, there is a centralized bank. Right? Exactly. So Bitcoin does not have that.

Jason Connell: 5:55:49

Now, it is decentralized, which is why the bigger establishments are not for it, they lose control. And although this is a clean system, it truly is. It's built on computers, it has a history to it, every transaction is saved. There's a record. So it really is a better system, but it's uncorruptible in some ways. And so it's been around 12 years, it didn't just pop up yesterday, there was even a article that came out that El Salvador is the first country to adopt cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender. So I mean, you're gonna see more and more people follow. It's an interesting time and space with currency in general.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:56:34

I think it's a very interesting time. Let me just ask you this. Do you know other than Bitcoin, how many other type of cryptocurrencies are there I know about the doji coin or doggy coin

Jason Connell: 5:56:44

Dogecoin has a lot of publicity because it was like, made as a joke, a meme coin caught traction. Of course, Elon Musk, who I'll talk about later in this episode, kind of took a shine to it on Twitter. So the stock value went from it was like fractions of a penny and now it's around 3536 cents per so that's a big jump from fractions of a penny to 36 cents so it's catching a lot of favor. Now that's an anon scarcity coin. There's Aetherium and there's so many altcoins out there, but the biggest one is Bitcoin.

Sal Rodriguez: 5:57:18

Okay, so bitcoin is the biggest of all the cryptocurrencies. Yeah, and this is

Jason Connell: 5:57:22

a second definition. So Bitcoin, very similar to cryptocurrency. But here's its definition, a type of digital currency in which a record of transactions is maintained and new units of currency are generated by the computational solution of mathematical problems, ie mining and which operates independently of a central bank, which we just talked about. So this gets a little bit into mining. These miners are doing these mathematical plans. muscles, if you will. And in doing so, they are rewarded and Bitcoin and it's

Sal Rodriguez: 5:58:02

it's fascinating. I have the image of actual miners with hard hats and the lights on the top like going into the computer like, right actually mining in your computer because I had a friend years ago when you visited us at our old studio. Yeah, Chris studios. Exactly. Skid Row suit is the owner of Skid Row was a Data Miner. Oh, so is this kind of in that family?

Jason Connell: 5:58:23

Well, I'm sure data miners could put on that crypto mining cap and probably be successful at it. Because you can do it. You could have a rig right now you can jump on your computer. But now it's competitive. It can be costly for a single off operator with not a strong enough computer. It's probably a lot harder now, because it's grown so much in the last decade. But yeah, maybe those guys do your ex partner, you know, yeah, maybe he's doing it we don't know. Fascinating. And the last definition just real basic, is blockchain and that is a system in which a record of transactions made in Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer to peer network. Now that is essentially what is recording it's everything's built on a blockchain. So it protects the data. It has all the records of the transactions of said data. If you gave me a Bitcoin, which would be really cool. If you sell based on value. I totally would, I totally would. And there'll be a record of that, like Sal Rodriguez transferred one bitcoin to Jason Connell, whatever I did with it. It's there's just a record. So there's no cleaner system if I give you $100 Or vice versa? Who's to say unless you Venmo me or PayPal? Me? There's really no history of that transaction?

Sal Rodriguez: 5:59:42

Yes. Or let's say Patreon, do you. Oh, I

Jason Connell: 5:59:44

like that. Yes, please do. Please do. Wait. Jason. So

Sal Rodriguez: 5:59:48

this blockchain, if I'm not mistaken, I've heard of that term. When I've read about NF? T.

Jason Connell: 5:59:53

Yes. So the NF T the non fungible token, it's very similar. Yeah, it has the blockchain, the ledger, same thing, same principle. So Sally, you're going to see and perhaps you already have, there's going to be smart contracts built in the blockchain, or various things that are just cleaner. If you're distributing money in a cryptocurrency way with the blockchain, it's like you could have payments for artists, musicians, or actors or filmmakers. And the money would cleanly go to who the money's owed to without going to the bank. And someone's deciding where the royalties go. And it's getting bogged down in the accounting, and it is a much faster, cleaner system. But the other side of that is some people lose control.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:00:38

Well, what do you mean by lose control?

Jason Connell: 6:00:40

Well, studios have studio accounting. Wow, we got that overhead here. We got this, and we're gonna hold back your royalties. And even when I was doing deals with Netflix, it's like, yeah, we want to license your movie for three years, and we're going to pay you every quarter for the next three years. Okay, well, how about this pay us a lump sum? Or how about speed that up? It's like those bigger companies, entities, banks, or whomever, they really hold the strings. They have the cash, but it frees things up and makes it a better system for all in my opinion. But hey, it's still early. So let's see how this plays out.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:01:17

Jason, let me just add one last thing to tie up all these definitions, because one thing is just really pretty apparent for me when it comes to Bitcoin. And cryptocurrency is I'm hearing no mention of taxes. So I'm under the impression cryptocurrency is tax free?

Jason Connell: 6:01:32

Well, I don't know about that. I know, it's decentralized right now. But the government is aware, I'm sure they're moving on things to charge taxes or to do whatever or have some level of control. I mean, now you can even buy cryptocurrency Bitcoin included on platforms like PayPal and Venmo. So there's some centralized nature to that. So it's already starting to branch out or splinter out and other factors. So I don't know if it's tax free, per se, but it's changing the system as we know it.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:02:04

And I will tell you this recently, and I've been noticing this I always noticed advertising and see what's out there. I'm noticing ads for the visa card backed by crypto

Jason Connell: 6:02:15

very interesting. Yeah. What I don't understand is why anyone would spend crypto on something like a good due to the volatile in our nature and price point of it's like soon as you buy something with crypto that's on the rise. You'd be like, Oh, no, it's worth so much more now. Yes, yes. I can't imagine sell a decade ago and someone's trying to like pay for something with crypto. I've heard of these crazy stories. That just I marvel at like the guys that bought a bunch of pizza with a bunch of Bitcoins, which are now literally worth so much. I think they essentially spent hundreds of millions on these pizzas. If you look at the math now, yeah, it's fascinating. So That's a whole other thing. And who knows, maybe I'll explore that on another

Sal Rodriguez: 6:02:59

show. No, I like that. It's a very broad topic, something that could be explored on its own on its own pocket. Oh, absolutely. And look, we haven't even gotten to the crime yet. Oh, no,

Jason Connell: 6:03:09

sorry. Yeah. Let's jump back in. So, on May 18 2021, police officials of Birmingham, a major city in England's West Midlands region, executed a search warrant in an industrial facility after receiving intelligence that it was being used as a marijuana factory.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:03:30

Yeah, I mean, Jason, we talked a lot about Bitcoin, obviously. Yeah, but we're not talking. I don't think as much about marijuana. But as far as we take for granted here in the States, a lot of states have decriminalized marijuana, right, not only for medicinal purposes, but recreational purposes. But in other parts of the world, marijuana is indeed still illegal.

Jason Connell: 6:03:50

Exactly. This is the UK. And I'm not aware of all of their laws, but it's obviously not legal, or at least not in certain regions to have a factory going, right. Even if it is legal. You can't just grow it anywhere. So I'm not sure the laws and regulations of this particular region in the UK, but you're right, yeah, it's absolutely still illegal and with severe penalties in some places in the world. Yeah.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:04:13

If I'm also not mistaken, this is our newest crime on that's a crime. We have not had a more recent crime. Now we have

Jason Connell: 6:04:20

not yet. So again, this show, as everyone knows, who listens, we cover everything from a misdemeanor to a murder. And that frees us up to do different things and not just do your usual run of the mill, serial killer show, we'll cover our serial killers. But now we can cover something incredibly recent and timely in regards to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency

Sal Rodriguez: 6:04:41

and the three M's misdemeanor murder marijuana.

Jason Connell: 6:04:46

So the Police Department stated that it received reports that lots of people were visiting the unit at different times of the day, and a police drone then detected a considerable heat source coming from the unit along with an abundance of visible wiring and ventilation ducts. Wow. All signs pointing to marijuana growth.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:05:10

Yeah, that's the typical thing, like your utility bill is usually 200. And all of a sudden your utility bills 1500 And the red flags go off. Yeah.

Jason Connell: 6:05:19

These are all classic signs of a cannabis farm, police said. However, upon entry into the building, officers discovered a massive bank of around 100 high powered, specialized computers wired together and sow zero cannabis.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:05:40

Hang on, hang on, Jason. You have 100 computers and a bunch of guys working on Bitcoin. And there was no marijuana there. Come on, you know, some guys are gonna be smoking some pot while they're at Bitcoin mining.

Jason Connell: 6:05:53

Yeah, that's a good point. Now, because minors may smoke some weed, I don't know. But I do know this. There have been no arrests to date. Now that doesn't come out and say in the article, it was empty. I just assumed that reading it if there's no arrest, they just came in. And maybe they caught nobody and found all these computers. So that's a little unclear and all the publications I read through. So let's assume that there could have been someone there. But police sergeant Jennifer Griffin said, it's certainly not what we were expecting. It had all the hallmarks of a cannabis cultivation setup. And I believe it's only the second such crypto mine we've encountered in the West Midlands, so south to be clear, in most of the world and lots of places anyway, mining for Bitcoin is not illegal.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:06:43

I bet you a lot of lawmakers don't even know what the hell it is. I mean, really, I'm assuming I'm not assuming lawmakers are really hipped to the latest computer technology, and they're probably still trying to figure out everything itself. Oh, that's probably true. The rest of us. Yeah,

Jason Connell: 6:06:58

yeah. But so it turns out that the mine was stealing 1000s of pounds UK dollars worth of electricity from the power grid.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:07:10

Yeah, this gets into another aspect of cryptocurrency and blockchain that I still don't understand. And that is how that uses massive amounts of electricity that some environmentalists now are complaining about when it comes to cryptocurrency like so. In other words, in order to mine Bitcoin, you have to use a lot of computer energy, I take it

Jason Connell: 6:07:32

exactly. And so this particular mine, they were doing it by pulling electricity off of the grid. So it's free. It's essentially running the business for free for the most part, their most expensive line item would be electricity, so they're doing it under cloak and dagger and hiding in this unit and just burning through a bunch of free power while the good times last. But to your point. It absolutely has caused bigger discussions and debates. And even Sergeant Griffin goes on to say, my understanding is that mining for cryptocurrency is not illegal itself, but clearly abstracting electricity from the mains supply, which is their power grid to power it is illegal. And that's their crime. Sal, that is this crime. They didn't do anything else wrong, as far as we know. I mean, are these computers stolen? These are questions we don't have answers to right now. Whose places this? Are they just Gypsies in the night and they're just took over a unit? We don't know. But this is the one crime we can point to?

Sal Rodriguez: 6:08:33

Well, that's the thing about new crimes is we don't have as much information as we would on an old crime like we had with our episode one dB Cooper, you know, if you're looking at old crimes, there's a lot of data now on those crimes. But this reminds me though, of the old crime, maybe from a, what, 3040 years ago, where you would tap into your neighbor's cable? Yes, like you would hook up your cable to your neighbor's cable, and you would be getting cable, but your neighbor is paying the bill. Yeah,

Jason Connell: 6:08:59

I guess run a splitter and he'd never know the difference.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:09:02

And this also shows what I've been saying recently learning more about cryptocurrency and cyber crimes like ransomware, and stuff like that, is that the criminals are always one step ahead of the police. Always the authorities are always trying to chase the criminals, but we'll always be one step behind.

Jason Connell: 6:09:19

Yeah. So when I read this, I like to think the fact that it was just a ghost town. And they went in there like, Huh, what you know, like, they were one step ahead, they got the news that the raid was coming, and they were out, however, they didn't have time to remove their computers, or at least not all of them. Now, as mentioned earlier, the Bitcoin miners are solving these complex mathematical equations. And this entire process is indeed sound like you just mentioned, incredibly energy intensive because of the amount of power used by these computers. Yeah, to me, I knew it's like really, but I've read things online. I've listened to podcasts, read books. And it's true, some small miners, they might just have a big computer or a couple of going and actually heats some of your house because he's computers are always working, always going and you'll burn out, you probably couldn't do it with your basic laptop, right? He probably just couldn't handle that constant processing, you need to speed speeds, everything you know those bigger towers are faster. I remember from editing, we always had big towers that had big fans that were always going that was for editing like HD footage at a quicker click. So I can't imagine what people need here. So and then you want to live where electricity is cheaper, right are free in a sense. So that is definitely true. And according to ditch economist, Bitcoin has a carbon footprint comparable with that of New Zealand, producing 36.95 megatons of co2 annually. Now most recently sound maybe you probably heard this newer alluding to this, but Elon Musk, we all know him and I've actually read one of his autobiographies. It was fascinating, but founder of Tesla and SpaceX, made headlines after Tesla purchased $1.5 billion dollars of Bitcoin in February, which is very timely sounds before the recent jump in price, and they began accepting bitcoin as payment for their vehicles. However, then in May, Musk tweeted that Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin out of concern over rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining. So here's a very green company Tesla that is bought all this Bitcoin not bad for their balance sheet, especially after the surge in pricing. But it's hard to be that company and support something that's getting this kind of rhetoric about it, like, hey, that's hurting the carbon footprint. So I'm sure musk, he's kind of being bashed now by Bitcoin miners in general, because this sow has caused a lot of volatility in the price of Bitcoin and all cryptocurrency for that matter. So it's been a real interesting time to see I'm sure he's getting pressure from the board and all these things, but he's not a loved man right now buy bitcoin miners. I mean, the price was literally cut in half recently due to some of these tweets.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:12:23

So it's an interesting time because I'm thinking now, Elon Musk is the new Warren Buffett. Right? Yeah, things he does affect the entire market.

Jason Connell: 6:12:32

Exactly. And so that's been happening. Now, the other side of this issue about what it cost energy wise, is that it takes just as much if not more energy to run conventional banks. I've heard this argument from several people who are in this space and know a lot more about it than I do, and others but it's true. I mean, you think about it to get up and just go to work. All the banks have to To employ people, there's energy and fire up their computer. So the problem is it's easy to say, hey, bitcoins taking this but no one's doing a true comparison. Right? No one's even adding up the energy spent, and all banking. So it's like, it's not really fair. But at the same time, there is an initiative, or at least it seems to find a more green method of mining. That's kind of been the discussions I at least I've seen or a coin that may emerge, it's a more eco friendly coin. I'm not sure

Sal Rodriguez: 6:13:27

you know, what I think happens. And I've been noticing this for several decades now. Whenever something hits the market, whatever it is, it could be an exercise device, or in this instance, Bitcoin, something hits the market. Everybody's excited about it, all the press is good. And then here comes the backlash, right? There's always going to be a backlash at some point. So the backlash for Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, is the energy expenditure. In other words, we got to choose something to use as our poster child for how this is not good.

Jason Connell: 6:13:57

Right. And I think it's because there's still a lot of debate about how do we control this? What is this, it's still emerging, the truth of the matter is, it's still valuable. And as we talked about, before we started recording, there's only going to be so many, this is a scarce commodity, they're going to make 21 million as far as I know. And there's a real value at it. And the purist, the people that believe in this, I mean, even Tesla itself purchased $1.5 billion worth, you don't do that, because you're speculating, it may be something, you know, this is valuable. But then you have to kind of put on the other hat, you have to appease the political game sell. I mean, he's opened up factories. Every state has its own initiative. I'm sure he's got to put that on as far as Musk goes. But, you know, this is something that's only going to go up in value. Yes, scarcity makes it that way. Also, it's a clean and incredible currency, with how it's built on this blockchain. So yeah, it's fascinating, really, it truly is, to me, and just the whole crypto market in general, as this moving forward becoming more in mainstream again, it didn't just happen yesterday, this has been around 12 years is my that's something and it just continues to grow and build followers and bigger companies are getting on board. So I'm anxious to see what comes next.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:15:18

Jason, I'm excited about the concept of scarcity. Because I often think of the whole blood diamond thing and DeBeers and the the illusion of scarcity in the world of diamonds, and why diamonds are so expensive, because they're scarce, but really, they're not. But in this instance, the Bitcoin, then it really will be a scarce resource. So if it's legitimately scarce, then that's interesting versus this whole marketing scheme to make something seem scarce that isn't like diamonds,

Jason Connell: 6:15:48

right? So now, most recently, Iran's government announced a ban on the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as officials blame the energy intensive process for blackouts in a number of Iranian cities. And in China, which accounts for about 65% of the world's Bitcoin mining, there is speculation that the government could ban cryptocurrency mining to cut down on the energy consuming operation, that 65% of it right there. So we'll see how that plays out and what kind of impact that has

Sal Rodriguez: 6:16:25

hang on Jason. So in other words, you're telling me that two of the country's with some of the records of human rights abuse, some of the biggest offenders are trying to clamp down on cryptocurrency because of energy? Yeah, right. Yeah,

Jason Connell: 6:16:39

they can't control it. Exactly. Yeah.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:16:41

So of course, you got to say, Everything's public perception. Hey, everybody, we need to clamp down on cryptocurrency because the energy and the public goes, Yeah, you're right, and Brexit. And there you go. So once you have the public approval, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Jason Connell: 6:16:54

Yeah. So again, back to our crime of this episode of that's a crime. During the Affer mentioned raid, police have made no arrest to date. So again, I think perhaps the miners were tipped off or just got lucky for now. Again, no arrest to me means no one was in the unit at the time of said raid, however. So all the equipment was seized and the operation was shut down under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:17:26

The Proceeds of Crime Act is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which provides for the confiscation or civil recovery of the proceeds from crime and contains the principal money laundering legislation in the UK. So that's very similar to what we have in this country where drug dealers get their houses and cars. Yeah, right, confiscated. It's kind of similar to that.

Jason Connell: 6:17:48

Exactly. So again, all that these people have done thus far that we know of, is still electricity. But they're taking everything in that unit underneath this act and saying, hey, it's all connected. And we're taking this and we're probably going to hunt down people who rented the unit this that the other that's probably been going on for several weeks. Now, of course, many detractors of Bitcoin claim that it's only good for money laundering, as stated in the Crime Act. However, since it's built on a blockchain cell, which keeps a clear record of its history, it would seem as if money laundering is the last thing you'd want to do with it.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:18:29

Yeah, because Bitcoin and blockchain kind of defends itself against fraud and counterfeiting, which our current currency standard doesn't. Correct.

Jason Connell: 6:18:40

Yeah, go ahead and launder some money. Sure. The serial numbers are there on said bills, if you know them, but that can get laundered and hard to find. And it's not like, that's always going to be present. If I hold up 100. I don't know the history of this$100 bill. But I know it's happened. I've heard people talk. And yes, it's probably happened over time in its infancy. But I would think that now it's probably not the smart play, to launder money with it. And so so the drug raid, in the end wasn't a complete failure, as we've stated, but it also would not have been illegal. Had they just paid their electric bill. Well,

Sal Rodriguez: 6:19:22

I'm wondering how much the electric bill would have been had they paid it. Okay, so my electricity here from my computer, and I run the air conditioner, and so forth. In my apartment here, let's say on the high end, 200 a month. Right. Okay. So what would it be if I had the whole Bitcoin? Activity

Jason Connell: 6:19:40

100 computers specialized to run mining computations? Yeah, I don't know. So it can only be 1000s and 1000s, and probably makes running that farm, a futile effort, you probably couldn't afford to be in business. In fact, I was looking up really quickly, like, well, what's the energy cost in the UK and I come across this, with the pound comparatively weak against the euro, there is a greater incentive for Europe to import energy from the UK, thus putting pressure on the supply demand curve, and increasing UK prices. Yeah, I was reading this past winter was all time high on energy cost. So there you go. If they were running a legitimate operation, they probably couldn't have run it. Right. The only way this operation that we're recovering right now could have been profitable is because energy was free.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:20:35

Well, there's almost puts than any data mining venture would have to be under scrutiny, then I mean, are all these guys paying high utility bills, then? Well, yeah, I

Jason Connell: 6:20:43

mean, I've heard the various companies in different parts of the US or certain states that it's just cheaper to run, maybe people have solar equipped, I don't even know this is what's fascinating to me, I want to see some mining companies or some independent miners and see their rigs and see how they're doing it. But I have heard their states where it's like, yeah, you know, we built this company up here because of the energy costs, and they're running it like a real legit business, and they're getting their bitcoins off there. When they solve these mathematical equations. And in the meantime, while they're mining, they're watching the stock price and probably cursing Musk when he tweets something bad, because it's like, oh, there goes the value of that. But again, like all stocks, as you probably know, so just hang on to it. If it's going down. Now, this is a scarcity. I would encourage those to get it and hang on to it and see what happens in the next decade with your collection of bitcoins or fractions of Bitcoins, or what have you.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:21:39

Well, you know, Jason, I would assure you, our listeners and all of my neighbors that were my electricity bill to quadruple or go a 10 fold or 100 fold. In my case, it would indeed be a marijuana farm.

Jason Connell: 6:21:56

That's it. You heard it here. First, folks. Sal Rodriguez, that's a crime. So as for the miners, who seem to have gotten away free and clear, not sure, but that's my assumption. That doesn't change the following sound. What is that?

Sal Rodriguez: 6:22:12

That's a crime.

Jason Connell: 6:22:15

You don't have to get busted. So it's still a crime. It's still a crime?

Sal Rodriguez: 6:22:21

Well, yeah, like I said, the crime is usually one step ahead of the authorities. And what I remember that specifically technology, like when you look at stuff like Bitcoin and ransomware, and computer technology in general, all the fraud that's happening and so forth, is you have the criminals and you have the cops always on their tail. I I don't know. I don't have a lot of hope for crime investigation. Yeah, because I believe that criminals are always going to be one step ahead of you with us playing Chase could be

Jason Connell: 6:22:47

so And lastly, I'm just curious if any actual bitcoins were discovered on On the seized computers,

Sal Rodriguez: 6:22:57

I'd have to get some savvy detective in there. Imagine if you're a savvy detective, you get the computers in front of you. You're working on the computers, and you discover some bitcoin. Can you just I don't know, I guess you couldn't just take it right? Because the whole blockchain thing.

Jason Connell: 6:23:10

However, this is another interesting thing. It's almost like a bearer bond or cash most time if you hold the keys to that crypto, if it has the code, and you have them in your possession, you own said Bitcoin. Now, there has been a few instances where the rightful owner did get possession of his or her Bitcoin again, however, I know, that's not always the case. I mean, that's a whole other thing. And there might be more episodes of that's a crime where you have your Bitcoin being held in a vault at the company, you purchased it from that company is hacked, they get people's keys to their supply of Bitcoin, and all of you lose out. So that has happened. So again, if you have your coins and your information, store them on these keys that they have store them in two different places, don't lose them. That's a whole other thing. People have lost so many bitcoins and it's like, Oh, my God, and then the value shoots up. So what happened maybe 10 years ago, you're like, I lost a few Bitcoins, whatever, then you look and say, Holy cow, that's now worth X million. And then you're doing a deep dive to try to find them again, it was on a hard drive that got thrown out. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. So it's not so easy, which I don't understand. So if it's a blockchain, and those are true transaction history, and you can prove that, you know, all of a sudden they're in your possession, and they were taken. I would think that you could get that back in, but it's decentralized, right? Yeah, no, no, there's no authority. So

Sal Rodriguez: 6:24:47

no, exactly. Yeah, there's no interval. This is not under Interpol's regulation to make sure that I didn't steal your Bitcoin, there's no authority to investigate those types of cyber crimes if one person steals Bitcoin from another.

Jason Connell: 6:25:00

No. But there are some cases happening now that could set precedents that change things. So we'll say and again, we can revisit this on future episodes of that scramble probably well, because it's fascinating. It's fast moving, and, and we do cover a wide range of things. So so we'll see it is really an interesting space. And I thought this was a fun story to uncover. And of course, if anything pops out, you know, maybe we would do an update or something. I'm not sure if these miners get caught, but most likely not Sal, I'm assuming they bailed or not going to get busted. But what information is on that computer? Like no one was opened up a random email and their Gmail account? Like what's out there? Do they just burn these things? Maybe they knew that police were coming. And it was just They fried all the hard drives. They just they weren't going to say that in the article probably, you know, admit any of that. So of course, you know, our information is limited.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:25:54

I think there's a lot of plausible deniability when it comes to computer usage. Like I could say, Hey, Jason, I noticed that on your computer that your email was open, you could say, I didn't open it. Yeah, exactly. You can't prove that whoever owns that email, you can't prove that they opened it. Just somebody opened it.

Jason Connell: 6:26:11

My computer was stolen and then some miners got it and there's probably a lot of that for sure. For sure. So I really enjoyed the deep dive into the illegal Bitcoin mine rated.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:26:23

Yeah. And you know what, Jason, I have a feeling I have a very strong feeling is that as that's a crime continues. I think we're going to be visiting cryptocurrency and possibly Bitcoin crimes in the future. Absolutely.

Jason Connell: 6:26:35

Yeah. This could be a spin off show.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:26:38

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, crypto crime crypto go home. Yeah.

Jason Connell: 6:26:42

So thank you so much for listening. And please be sure to subscribe to that's a crime wherever you get your podcast. You can also really help us by giving the show a five star rating on Apple podcast.

Sal Rodriguez: 6:26:52

And for all you listeners that enjoy sharing your thoughts. You can leave us a review on Apple podcasts, send us a direct message or post a comment on our social media which is at just curious media.

Jason Connell: 6:27:03

We also highly recommend checking out our other podcast and visiting just curious media.com