Police and electricity authorities have raided buildings in Chachoengsao and Surat Thani provinces, arrested suspects and seized cryptocurrency mining machines that stole tens of millions of baht worth of electricity.
The crackdown in the southern province of Surat Thani happened last weekend. Officials searched seven commercial buildings and two houses in Muang district.
Two 30-year-old men, identified only as Nathapong and Arthit, were arrested and 111 crypto mining machines were seized. Also taken were seven desktop computers, 10 routers and 10 modified power meters.
Informants had told police to check the buildings because they were deserted but equipped with surveillance cameras, Crime Suppression Division commander Pol Maj Gen Montri Theskhan said on Tuesday.
He said detectives found that Mr Nathapong rented the seven commercial buildings and owned the two houses. He had financial transactions worth more than 40 million baht from January last year to July this year.
Officials also found that the sites consumed considerable electricity but their power bills were unusually low. They suspected the electricity meters had been modified.
Officials raided the buildings last Saturday and Sunday and found the crypto mining hardware.
Pol Maj Gen Montri quoted Mr Nathapong as saying that he started the illicit business late last year and acquired secondhand mining devices for the purpose.
Mr Arthit reportedly confessed that he was hired to modify power meters and maintain power supply networks at the nine locations, the commander said.
Electricity officials said the crypto mining consumed power worth about 10 million baht.
In Chachoengsao province east of Bangkok, authorities raided a deserted warehouse in tambon Sala Daeng of Bang Nam Prieo district on Tuesday. There they found 109 operating crypto mining machines plus 66 other units that had yet to be installed. The devices were estimated to be worth about 17 million baht.
The raid occurred after officials found that the warehouse was consuming power even though it was deserted. Electricity officials who traced the power theft to the site said it consumed more than 10 million baht worth of electricity in recent months.
The raids come just a month after another operation in Kanchanaburi uncovered crypto mining being carried out at 10 locations.
Cryptocurrency mining is an extremely power-intensive activity because the billions of calculations involved require huge amounts of computing power. Studies in the US showed that, in 2023, dedicated mining companies with highly efficient setups would consume about 155,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to mine a single bitcoin.
In Thailand, assuming a power tariff of 4 baht per kWh, that works out to 620,000 baht. The average household power bill in Thailand has been estimated at 750 baht a month.