Kazakhstan Cracks Down On Illegal Crypto Mining Activities
The government of Kazakhstan is cracking down on illegal crypto mining facilities, according to the country’s authorities.
Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) reported on March 15 that several crypto mining operations have been shut down within its borders.
Illegal activities in this industry have led to the emergence of certain risks that pose a threat to the economic security of the country, the government said in a statement.
Thus, the risks of supply failures and shortages of electricity to ordinary consumers and entrepreneurs began to increase.
In accordance with the instructions of the Head of State, the Financial Monitoring Agency, together with government agencies, carried out comprehensive inspections of the activities of mining farms.
As a result of the preventive measures taken, 55 mining farms voluntarily ceased their activities.
They completely suspended work, dismantled the equipment and removed it from the places of deployment.
Together with interested government agencies, work is underway to prevent the involvement of this equipment in the secondary circulation.
Among the mining companies that have ceased their activities, there are firms affiliated with well-known entrepreneurs Bolat Nazarbayev and Alexander Klebanov in the Pavlodar region.
Also, the ex-chairman of the board of QazaqGaz National Company JSC Kairat Sharipbaev in the Aktobe region and one of the well-known businessmen Yerlan Nigmatulin in the Karaganda region.
Along with this, the illegal activities of 51 mining farms were stopped. They did not notify the authorized body about the start of their activities, or illegally connected to energy sources without technical conditions, unreasonably placed on the territory of special economic zones, and also evaded taxes and customs duties.
Today, all of them are disconnected from power supply sources.
For example, in the Karaganda region, a mining farm illegally carried out activities on the territory of the Saryarka FEZ.
And this despite the fact that the priority activities of the SEZ are the production of equipment, the metallurgical industry, and construction.
Also, facts of spending, and sometimes reselling electricity intended for production needs were revealed.
In the Pavlodar region, two greenhouse companies sold their surplus electricity for mining to third parties without a license.
In addition, illegal mining activities were carried out by companies associated with the former head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Tlegen Matkenov.
As for the origin of mining equipment, it was imported from China, South Korea, Singapore, Turkey and Georgia. Their import in some cases was carried out by smuggling.
One of these facts was revealed in the city of Almaty, where more than one thousand units of mining equipment worth 2.8 billion tenge were imported from China.
In total, the Financial Monitoring Agency registered 25 criminal cases, seized more than 67 thousand pieces of equipment worth about 100 billion tenge.
In general, the measures taken contribute not only to curbing the growth of electricity consumption, but also to freeing up energy capacities.
As a result of the work carried out, the daily electricity consumption in the country decreased by 600 megawatts/hour.
It should be noted that the lack of sufficient regulation of mining and circulation of digital assets creates significant threats to the financial system and the well-being of citizens.
Cryptocurrency can serve as a tool for the financing of terrorism, the acquisition of weapons and drugs.
Given these circumstances, within the framework of the established interdepartmental working group (representatives of the Financial Monitoring Agency, ministries for digital development, energy and finance), systemic solutions are being developed aimed at legislative settlement of problematic issues.
