The hunt begins from the air at Malaysia’s unlawful Bitcoin (BTC) mining hotspots.
Drones fly over rows of shops and deserted buildings, searching for areas the place there’s sudden warmth. It is a warmth signature of a machine that shouldn’t be operating.
On the bottom, police carry handheld sensors that sniff out irregular energy utilization. In some instances, extra low-tech investigations could also be undertaken. Residents complained of unusual hen calls, however officers found that pure sounds had been getting used behind closed doorways to masks the roar of equipment.
Surveillance networks exist as a result of the dimensions of the issue requires them. As native information retailers reported, between 2020 and August 2025, authorities caught 13,827 amenities stealing electrical energy for cryptocurrency mining (primarily Bitcoin).
Losses are anticipated to be round 4.6 billion ringgit (equal to about $1.1 billion), in line with state power firm Tenaga Nasional (TNB) and the Ministry of Vitality Transformation and Water Transformation.
By early October, authorities had recorded almost 3,000 mining-related thefts as Bitcoin rebounded, falling greater than 30% after hitting an all-time excessive.
The miners they’re chasing are cautious. They fly from empty storefronts to abandoned houses, putting in warmth shields to cover the shine on their gear.
Surveillance cameras, tight safety, and anti-glass breakers have been put in on the entrance to maintain out undesirable guests.
This cat-and-mouse recreation has been happening for years, however the numbers counsel it is accelerating.
In accordance with a TNB report, energy theft associated to cryptocurrencies has elevated by almost 300% previously six years, with cumulative losses of about RM3.4 billion from 2018 to 2023 alone.
Add within the earlier years and the precise invoice for Bitcoin energy theft inches nearer to RM8 billion. In Perak, landowners have been left with thousands and thousands of {dollars} in unpaid TNB payments after their tenants left for unlawful mining, forcing them to both pursue the tenants or soak up the payments.
The sensor grid behind the crackdown
What began as a easy meter test has developed right into a multi-layered surveillance effort.
The TNB management room is at present monitoring the good meters on the transformer stage for unexplained losses.
These distribution transformer meters are a part of a pilot program and report in actual time the quantity of energy flowing into close by circuits.
If the entire on the client meter beneath it’s too low, the operator will know that energy is being diverted someplace inside that cluster.
The anomaly causes the listing of focused roads to be deleted. The crew then flies over these roads at night time with a thermal drone and roams them utilizing hand-held load sensors. This turns what was once a “knock and peek behind each curler shutter” requirement right into a guided search.
Drones detect warmth signatures from suspected mining clusters, and sensors affirm irregular mining.
The 2022 Tenaga briefing has already described the usage of drones in parallel with conventional meter inspections, giving a transparent move to the operation, with primary enforcement first after which data-driven monitoring relying on the dimensions of the issue.
The utility additionally constructed an inner database linking suspect properties to house owners and tenants.
The Division of Vitality says this database is now the reference level for inspections and investigations associated to Bitcoin-related energy theft.
This addresses persistent enforcement points. Tools is usually registered with a shell entity and amenities are rented or sublet, decreasing the chance of conviction even within the occasion of a profitable raid.
On November 19, the federal government established a cross-ministerial particular committee consisting of the Ministry of Finance, Financial institution Negara Malaysia, and TNB to coordinate the crackdown. Deputy Vitality Minister Akmal Nasrallah Mohd Nasir, who chairs the panel, argues that the chance is existential.
In a latest report by Bloomberg Information, he mentioned:
“The chance of permitting such exercise is not theft; it may really even destroy our amenities. It turns into a problem to our methods.”
Transformer overloads, fires, and native energy outages at the moment are a part of the equation.
There may be open dialogue inside that committee about recommending an entire ban on Bitcoin mining, even when operators pay for electrical energy.
Nasir says this frankly.
“Even for those who run it correctly, the problem is that the market itself could be very risky. I do not see any well-run mining that may be thought-about legally profitable.”
He added that the sample of cellular websites steered the present was run by an organized crime syndicate, including: “It is clearly run by a corporation due to how cellular it’s from one location to a different. There is definitely a modus operandi.”
The economics of meter tampering
The core financial logic is straightforward. Closely backed grid electrical energy is an costly asset with little labor.
Home tariffs in Malaysia are traditionally low, with tiered residential tariffs beginning at round 21.8 sen per kilowatt hour for the primary 200kWh, rising to round 51-57 sen for greater bands.
After a protracted freeze interval, the essential charge will likely be raised to roughly 45.4 sen per kWh in 2025 for the 2025/2027 regulation interval, and at present high-volume prospects will likely be topic to extra prices for consumption exceeding 600 kWh per 30 days.
Nonetheless, analysts and crypto websites compiling the ministry’s figures say Malaysia’s efficient electrical energy value is round $0.01 to $0.05 per kWh, relying on class and subsidy.
For miners with dozens or a whole lot of ASICs operating across the clock, the distinction between paying even a backed price and paying nothing is the distinction between marginal and really giant earnings.
This creates an incentive to bypass the meter utterly.
In lots of investigations, investigators discover cables linked on to overhead strains or service strains in entrance of meters. Subsequently, the recorded consumption of actual property seems to be that of a standard small store or residence, whereas the transformer supplying the facility is working at a number of instances the anticipated load.
Akmal has explicitly linked the surge in thefts to the value of Bitcoin, noting in July that when Bitcoin exceeds round 500,000 ringgit per coin, extra operators are “keen to danger stealing electrical energy for mining”.
It has its flaws, however they really feel diluted. The Electrical energy Provide Act permits for fines of as much as RM1 million and as much as 10 years in jail for meter tampering, and police information exhibits a whole lot of individuals have been arrested and gear seized price tens of thousands and thousands of ringgit over the previous few years.
However the syndicate construction softens the blow. The gear is registered with Shell, the power is sublet, and the particular person really working the rig not often holds a lease.
There are additionally system-level alternative prices. Malaysia is seeking to decarbonize its electrical energy grid by shifting from coal to fuel and solar energy, whereas additionally powering the growth of information centres.
Each kilowatt-hour stolen is electrical energy that might have been used to pay prospects within the industrial or digital economic system, moderately than subsidize underground farms.
The place do they go when the lights exit?
Regionally, the geography of avoidance is obvious. Unlawful miners in Peninsular Malaysia transfer between vacant, deserted and partially vacant storefronts, putting in warmth shields, surveillance cameras and even damaged glass panels at entrances to decelerate assaults.
One viral instance was a large-scale operation on the largely vacant ElementX mall close to the Straits of Malacca, which was solely taken down after TikTok footage went viral.
In Sarawak, authorities discovered mining gear linked on to overhead wires hidden in distant logging fields and buildings deep in forest areas.
What tends to occur after a crackdown will not be that miners disappear, however moderately that hashing energy strikes to the following most cost-effective or least enforced grid.
Globally, this sample is evident. China’s mining ban in 2021 triggered a “huge mining exodus,” with fleets of equipment heading to Kazakhstan, North America, and different energy-rich areas.
Later, when Kazakhstan cracked down on kickbacks from unregistered miners and energy vegetation, a few of that {hardware} moved once more, together with to Russia and different components of Central Asia.
In 2025, new echoes of the identical dynamics are taking part in out throughout the area. Kuwait is within the midst of a significant crackdown, accusing miners of worsening the facility disaster by raiding houses that had been utilizing as much as 20 instances the traditional quantity of electrical energy.
Laos initially supplied surplus hydropower to miners, however now plans to chop off energy to cryptocurrency operations by early 2026 and redirect energy to AI information facilities, metallic refining, and EV manufacturing.
China itself has seen underground mining rebound to an estimated 14% to twenty% of worldwide hashrate by late 2025, regardless of a 2021 ban, as operators exploit low-cost energy and overbuilt information middle infrastructure within the energy-rich province.
Malaysia is changing into built-in into this broader sample. Because the crackdown on low-cost or backed electrical energy tightens in a single area, miners both burrow into distant buildings additional underground within the nation with higher camouflage and extra aggressive meter tapping, or they leap to the following jurisdiction the place the maths nonetheless works and the dangers really feel manageable.
Mr. Akmal defined most of this, arguing that the location’s maneuverability and the velocity at which the rigs moved had been indicative of a syndicate-style operation moderately than a hobbyist one.
Theft is not the one hazard. The query is whether or not Malaysia will be capable to shield its energy grid infrastructure, which is meant to fund a inexperienced transition and information middle growth, or whether or not it can use drones to wipe it out and turn into a brand new method station to scour the world for reasonable electrons.
