Malaysia Detains Two and Seizes 30 Bitcoin Miners in Latest Electricity Theft Raid

Malaysian police have detained two men and seized 30 Bitcoin mining machines after uncovering an operation in Seri Iskandar that allegedly ran on an illegal electricity connection, the latest raid in a multi-year enforcement campaign against power theft linked to cryptocurrency mining.

The operation was carried out by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Perak Tengah district police together with national utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad, according to district police chief Supt Hafezul Helmi Hamzah. Investigators identified a premises in Seri Iskandar, a town in Perak, where electricity was allegedly diverted through an unauthorized connection to power mining equipment.

Officers seized 30 mining machines along with an internet router, a desktop switch and a coil of electrical wire. Two local men were detained to assist with the investigation. “The two men were detained to assist investigations,” Hafezul said in a statement.

## Familiar charges under an old law

Police are investigating the case under Section 427 of Malaysia’s Penal Code, which covers mischief, and Section 37(1) of the Electricity Supply Act 1990, which covers tampering with or altering electricity installations. The same combination of provisions has been cited in previous raids on suspected mining-related electricity theft across the country.

The enforcement logic is straightforward. Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive business by design: specialized machines run around the clock, competing to process transactions and earn block rewards, and electricity is one of the largest operating costs. Bypassing a meter lets an illegal operator avoid that cost entirely while the utility absorbs the loss.

Hafezul warned that illegal connections used for cryptocurrency mining can cause substantial losses to electricity providers and raise the risk of fires, urging members of the public with information about illegal mining activities to come forward.

## A string of raids across Malaysia

The Seri Iskandar case is the latest in a series of operations targeting miners accused of bypassing electricity meters. In July, police arrested two men after raids on three properties in Tronoh uncovered 73 Bitcoin mining machines. That operation, run by Batu Gajah police alongside TNB personnel under Op Elektrik, found mining equipment at all three locations, with technical inspections confirming electricity theft at two abandoned houses. The two suspects, aged 40 and 52, were remanded for three days.

A separate operation in Terengganu in May 2025 uncovered 45 mining machines after police and TNB personnel raided properties in the Hulu Terengganu and Marang districts. The two properties, a residential site in Bukit Perpat and a commercial premises in Wakaf Tapai, were suspected of having been modified to bypass meters. TNB estimated the stolen electricity was costing the utility around 36,000 ringgit per month, with seized equipment valued at roughly 225,000 ringgit.

Recent enforcement has targeted residential homes, commercial buildings and vacant properties converted into mining sites, reflecting how flexible illegal operators have become in finding premises where tampered connections can go unnoticed.

## The bill runs into hundreds of millions

The cumulative cost to TNB is significant. The utility reported in 2024 that illegal Bitcoin mining had caused more than 440 million ringgit in electricity theft losses since 2020. The annual figures trace an uneven but persistent problem: losses reached 5.9 million ringgit in 2020, climbed to 140.4 million ringgit in 2021, fell to 124.9 million ringgit in 2022 and dropped again to 67.1 million ringgit in 2023.

For context, Bitcoin traded around 83,608 USD at the time of the latest raid, with ether at 2,676 USD and solana at 118 USD, a price environment in which even subsidized or stolen power remains tempting for operators unwilling or unable to compete legally on energy costs.

## Fire risk adds a safety dimension

Electricity theft linked to mining has raised safety concerns alongside the financial losses. In February 2025, a mining operation in Kuala Lumpur was discovered after an explosion and smoke prompted firefighters to respond to a house. After extinguishing the fire, they found modified electrical wiring inside the property, along with Bitcoin mining machines and related equipment. Investigators confirmed electricity had been tapped through an unauthorized connection.

That pattern is precisely what authorities say motivates the joint police-TNB operations: improvised connections, overloaded circuits and abandoned buildings repurposed as mining sites create fire hazards that extend beyond the operators themselves to neighboring properties.

## What comes next

The two men detained in Seri Iskandar remain under investigation, and Malaysian authorities show no sign of easing the enforcement campaign. With the Utility continuing to log losses and police treating mining-related power theft as a priority under Op Elektrik-style operations, the Seri Iskandar raid is unlikely to be the last.

For the broader mining industry, cases like these underline the gap between industrial-scale legal mining, where energy contracts and grid relationships are central to the business, and the underground operations that regulators in several countries continue to dismantle. In Malaysia, the message from authorities is consistent: mining with stolen power is treated as theft and prosecuted accordingly, with penalties that can include both criminal mischief charges and sanctions under the Electricity Supply Act.