DOJ charges cryptocurrency miner for stealing $5M worth of computing power

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington has formally charged Ho Jun Jia, a Singapore citizen, for allegedly stealing computing power and services to mine cryptocurrencies.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, between Oct. 2017 and Feb. 2018, Ho ran a "large-scale cryptocurrency mining operation." Ho allegedly funded his operation using stolen identity and credit card information to rent cloud computing power from multiple cloud service providers, using the power to mine cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.

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The U.S. Attorney's office also alleges that Ho consumed "consumed more than $5 million in unpaid cloud computing services with his mining operation and, for a brief period, was one of Amazon Web Services (AWS) largest consumers of data usage by volume."

Ho has been taken into custody by the Singapore Police Force and is now being investigated for these alleged offenses under Singapore law.

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Steven Zheng is a researcher for The Block. He joined The Block in August 2018. Steven graduated from St. John’s University with a degree in economics. Previously, he covered blockchain and crypto at Radicle, a startup analytics firm. He also had brief stints at Cheddar, a media startup, and Bowery Capital, a venture capital firm. He owns bitcoin. Follow Steven on Twitter at: @Dogetoshi

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