Massachusetts man charged after mining crypto in school crawl space
A Massachusetts man faces charges after mining cryptocurrency in a school crawl space, according to a report from the Washington Post on Pebrero 23.ăăThat report says that Nadeam Nahas, a Cohasset, MA, municipal employee, was set to be arraigned today for fraudulent electricity use and vandalism. He did not arrive in court, and the judge issued a default warrant, giving police the power to arrest him.ăăThe townâs facilities director â not named in the article â discovered computers and assorted equipment in a school crawl space in December 2021 and reported his discovery to the police. The townâs IT director later determined that the configuration was a crypto-mining network connected to the schools electrical system.ăăNahas, the towns assistant facilities director, was identified as the suspect. He reportedly resigned from his position in early 2022.ăăThe original article did not report which cryptocurrency Nahas mined. However, Bitcoin is typically mined in both legitimate and illicit mining operations.ăăIllegal crypto-mining operations are fairly common, as electricity costs greatly offset Bitcoin mining profits. According to Visual Capitalist, it cost $35,404 to mine a single Bitcoin last year â â more than the value of Bitcoin at that time. Illegal miners can increase their profits by relying