Two individuals were sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally digging Bitcoin in a pigsty with high-voltage lines On April 3rd, according to a report by China Newsweek, Zhang and Zhao illegally profited by "stealing electricity" from high-voltage lines in oil fields and setting up 36 Bitcoin mining machines in an abandoned pigsty for mining. The reporter learned from the China Judgments Online that recently, the People's Court of Honggang District, Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province announced the first instance judgment, sentencing Zhang to ten years in prison and Zhao to four years and ten months in prison for theft. After trial and investigation, it was found that on September 8, 2024, Zhang privately connected the oil field high-voltage line of a certain oil production plant of a limited liability company in Daqing, and stole electricity in the abandoned pigsty of the rented slaughterhouse factory to use for mining Bitcoin mining machines. Zhang purchased 24 mining machines successively. Later, Zhang and Zhao contacted each other to join and jointly operate a Bitcoin mining machine. On August 1, 2025, Zhang and Zhao were arrested by the public security organs. After calculation, Zhang stole 565375.2 kilowatt hours of oil field electricity, worth RMB 438580.52. Zhao has been stealing 468060 kilowatt hours of oil field electricity worth RMB 363750.78 since December 12, 2024. The court ruled that Zhang committed theft and was sentenced to ten years in prison and fined RMB 50000; Zhao was convicted of theft and sentenced to four years and ten months in prison, with a fine of RMB 20000; Order Zhang to compensate 438580.52 yuan, and Zhao to jointly compensate 363750.78 yuan of it; The confiscated Bitcoin mining machines, mobile phones, switches, transformers and other items in this case shall be handled by the public security organs in accordance with the law.