Imagine waking up in the morning and finding your electricity bill has reached RM1 million!!
That was the nightmare experienced by a homeowner in Ipoh when his tenant secretly turned his rental space into an illegal cryptocurrency mining site.
Although the property was rented through a legitimate agency with an agreement as a storage space, without the owner's knowledge, the tenant cunningly turned the space into a large-scale Bitcoin mining center and stole electricity from Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB).
When the illegal operation was uncovered, the homeowner immediately reported it to the authorities.
However, unfortunately, he still had to pay the full amount of the unusually high electricity bill of RM1.1 million!
The case has sparked public outrage, questioning the weakness of the country's regulations that fail to protect property owners from tenant fraud.
Property expert, Calvin Chai, warned all property owners not to rush to rent out their properties without researching the background of the tenants so that this will not happen again in the future.
According to TNB, since 2018, electricity theft by illegal Bitcoin miners has caused losses of RM3.4 billion, despite over 2,000 raids being conducted to curb the problem.
Is it time for stricter laws to be enacted to protect property owners from cyber and crypto crimes like this?
