Ukraine’s IT Staffer Arrested for Mining Crypto at Work

An employee at Ukraine’s State Judicial Administration is currently facing the heat of the law as he is charged with illegally mining cryptocurrency in his office.

On Wednesday, the Kyiv prosecutor’s office reported on its Facebook page that the investigation into the development has been concluded. The employee worked in the IT department of the state’s Judicial Administration, and he will be charged to court for violating the rules guiding workers in the organization.

The scam has seen employees who are crypto savvy to take advantage of state-funded systems to mine cryptocurrencies for themselves. The prosecutors said this act constitutes a fraudulent activity in the crypto sector. In addition, the wrong use of government-funded resources for personal gain is a crime on its own, which makes the case of the accused a very serious one.

The accused took advantage of office equipment

According to the Facebook report, the accused took advantage of the internet bandwidth and equipment provided for the judiciary web portal and the database of Ukraine’s court documents to engage in crypto mining from January to May 2018.

In addition to the primary crime of illegally mining cryptocurrency, he is also accused of hosting external websites with the organization’s servers, which includes a site for motorcycle fans and three online stores.

According to the prosecutors, he is also accused of distributing harmful software and disrupting computer networks in the workplace. The unnamed accused will be tried in court. If found guilty, he will be banned from working in government agencies and likely face a 6-year prison sentence, the prosecutors said.

One of many cases

This news is coming after a number of related incidents involving the mining of cryptocurrencies in government establishments.

In August last year, Ukraine’s law enforcement agency caught some people using the Nuclear Power plant in South Ukraine to power up their crypto mining facility.

More recently, in November last year, some workers of Ukraine’s railway administration were caught mining cryptocurrencies using the power capacity of the company. While responding to the development, the railway company said the mining group has used the resources of the government to set up a mining facility that’s costing the government more than $40,000 in power.

Oleg Nazaruk, the Director of Ukraine’s railway department said “During the inspection of the premises where the so-called farm was located, more than 100 pieces of computer equipment were identified that were generating Bitcoins.

Apart from Ukraine, there have been recorded cases of related illegal crypto mining activities in other countries.