Massachusetts man charged after mining crypto in school crawl space

Massachusetts man to be indicted after mining cryptocurrency in school crawlspace, Washington Post reports February 23rd.

Nadeam Nahas, a city employee in Cohasset, Massachusetts, was scheduled to be arrested today for illegal electricity use and vandalism, according to the report. He never made it to court, and the judge issued a writ of default, giving the police the power to arrest him.

A town facilities manager (who was not named in the article) discovered computers and various equipment in the school’s crawl space in December 2021 and reported the discovery to police. Her town’s IT chief later determined that the configuration was a cryptocurrency mining network connected to the school’s electrical system.

Nahas, the town’s deputy superintendent, was identified as a suspect. He reportedly resigned from the position in early 2022.

The original article did not report which cryptocurrencies were mined by Nahas. However, Bitcoin is usually mined through both legitimate and illegal mining.

Illegal cryptocurrency mining operations are fairly common, as electricity costs greatly offset Bitcoin mining profits.according to visual capitalist, it cost $35,404 to mine one Bitcoin last yearbeyond the value of Bitcoin at the time. Illegal miners can increase their profits by relying on places that already pay their electricity bills.

Russian business portal TA Adviser report Since 2017, there have been dozens of illegal mining incidents. Perpetrators are mining cryptocurrencies on the premises of universities, psychiatric hospitals, government buildings, airports, and more.

Most of these incidents involve illegally connecting to power sources, but some involve direct theft of mining equipment and other related crimes.