Russian authorities bust massive crypto farm in Irkutsk

Russian law enforcement has busted one of the country’s largest unauthorized installations for cryptocurrency mining discovered recently, seizing over a thousand mining devices.

The Bitcoin farm was found at an industrial site in Irkutsk, capital of the Siberian region with the same name, which banned the minting of digital coins as a measure to deal with energy deficits.

Russia shuts down big mining farm in Irkutsk

Russian authorities have terminated one of the biggest unlicensed crypto mining operations this year during a raid in the main city of Irkutsk Oblast, Southeastern Siberia.

Officers of the Investigative Committee have confiscated more than 1,200 mining machines, the regional branch of Russia’s main investigating body said in a post on Telegram.

The illegal facility was built on the premises of a production site on Rosa Luxemburg Street, the crypto page of the business news portal RBC reported, quoting the announcement.

Electrical engineers and even members of the Russian riot police force joined the search, conducted as part of a criminal investigation into suspected electricity theft.

Breaking down the hardware numbers further, the press release detailed:

“1,257 miners and 66 rigs with video cards were discovered and seized as well as two transformer substations and 10 electricity meters.”

Employees of the local utility are currently assessing the financial damages caused by the operators of the massive farm, who will be prosecuted for large-scale fraud under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Investigators intend to also identify the mining pools that the farm was connected to, in order to determine for how long it was active and how much cryptocurrency it mined.

Illegal mining still a headache for Russian authorities

Mining has been a legal business in Russia since the government in Moscow recognized it as an industrial activity and regulated it in 2024.

To mine perfectly legally, however, companies and individual entrepreneurs are also required to register with the Federal Tax Service (FNS) if they consume over 6,000 kWh of electricity monthly. Their equipment must be registered as well.

Places like Irkutsk have attracted a significant number of mining enterprises, with low electricity rates and a cool climate. The high concentration of miners has been blamed for growing energy shortages and addressed with seasonal or permanent restrictions.

About a dozen Russian regions, from the Siberian Far East to the Russian republics in the North Caucasus and the occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine, have so far introduced such measures.

Irkutsk Oblast is one of them. Its authorities completely banned the minting of digital currencies until the spring of 2031 in the southern parts of the region, including its administrative center.

Local authorities have been quite actively combating illegal mining farms such as the one discovered this week, as they are overloading the distribution network in their vicinities.

They are causing frequent breakdowns and power outages in such areas, often residential. Many of them are illegally connected to the grid.

Besides financial losses to electric utilities, crypto miners working outside the law have also been harming budget revenues in Russia.

According to an estimate made public earlier in October, the Russian state is losing over $120 million a year due to tax evasion in the sector, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

Speaking at a fintech forum this month, Deputy Minister of Finance Ivan Chebeskov highlighted that less than a third of all participants in the industry are registered.

The largest illegal mining facility in recent years was dismantled in June. During a raid in the Angarsk urban district of the oblast, where mining is also prohibited, law enforcement officers found over 2,100 units of mining hardware.