Prosecutors in Poland’s capital Warsaw recently launched a probe into how cryptocurrency mining equipment was installed in a building housing the country’s Supreme Administrative Court. The chairman of the court’s information department insisted the crypto-mining equipment posed no threat to the security of stored data.
Crypto Mining Rig in Ventilator Duct
According to a Polish online media outlet TVN24, the country’s law enforcement agencies were recently made aware of the existence of unsanctioned crypto-mining operations at the headquarters of Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw. As per the report, officials only became aware of the presence of the crypto-mining gear sometime in August and September.
Since then Poland’s prosecution office has instituted an investigation into how the mining rigs were housed in a ventilation duct and the technical floor of the building housing the court. On the other hand, the president of the Supreme Administrative Court has reportedly terminated the contract of the unnamed company tasked with maintaining the building.
For its part, the company is said to have fired two employees who were responsible for servicing part of the building where mining equipment was found. Although no official figures on the amount of financial prejudice suffered have been given, the unofficial data gathered by TVN24 suggests that the electricity consumed per month may run into thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, the confirmation of the mining equipment’s presence at the court’s headquarters was reportedly made by Judge Sylwester Marciniak, the chairman of the Judicial Information Department of the Supreme Administrative Court. Marciniak, nevertheless, allayed fears that the mining rigs posed a threat to the security of data stored at the court.
Szymon Banna, the spokesperson for the Warsaw prosecution officer, revealed that experts on electricity and power consumption have been asked to help determine the amount of electricity that mining rigs were using.
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