Aussie Govt. Employee Charged for Mining Cryptos for Personal Gains

Australian Federal Police Australian Federal Police

An Aussie govt. employee has been charged for mining cryptos by modifying govt. computers for his personal gains. The name of the person has not been revealed yet. This person has been accused of mining cryptos that were worth more than AU$9,000 (US$6,184) for his own gains. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) charged the person from one of the suburbs of Sydney.

On this, the acting commander of the Australian Federal Police (AFP)- Chris Goldsmid, said-

Australian taxpayers put their trust in public officials to perform vital roles for our community with the utmost integrity. Any alleged criminal conduct which betrays this trust for personal gain will be investigated and prosecuted.

As per Australia’s Criminal Code Act, the Australian Federal Police arrested the 33-year-old person on the following grounds-

  1. Modifying the data to create impairment in an unauthorized manner, based on section 477.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.
  2. Illegal modifying of the ‘restricted information and data,’ based on section 478.1 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.

The IT contractor was in the news last year too. During the raid in 2018 at the person’s home, things such as- laptop, phone, employee ID cards, and data files, etc. were seized by the Australian Federal Police. If proven guilty, the IT contractor will have to face a ten years long imprisonment based on the first allegation, and a two years long imprisonment based on the second one.