Brazilian police confiscated roughly 1,400 Bitcoin mining machines from two cities in São Paulo state on May 20, shutting down an operation that had been quietly siphoning an estimated 2 gigawatt-hours of electricity from the local grid. To put that number in perspective, that’s enough power to keep about 2,000 homes running for an entire month.
The operation was carried out by the São Paulo State Property Crime Investigation Department, known as DEIC, working alongside CPFL Piratininga, the regional utility company. Together they identified nine industrial-grade three-phase transformers with a combined capacity of 8,470 kVA that had been rigged to funnel stolen power into the mining farms.
How the scheme worked
The rigs were spread across facilities in Jundiaí and Louveira, two cities in São Paulo’s interior. Nine three-phase transformers served as the backbone of the illicit setup. The 8,470 kVA total capacity suggests this was no hobbyist garage operation.
Bitcoin mining is perfectly legal in Brazil. The prosecution here centers entirely on the electricity theft. By stealing grid power, these operators eliminated their single largest expense, effectively subsidizing their Bitcoin rewards at the public’s expense.
