Watch Malaysian police use a steamroller to crush 1,069 bitcoin mining rigs worth $1.3 million

• Malaysian police steamrolled 1,069 bitcoin mining rigs in a parking lot.
• The miners who owned the rigs allegedly stole $2 million worth of electricity.
• $1.3 million worth of bitcoin mining equipment was crushed, police said.

Malaysian police used a steamroller to crush 1,069 bitcoin mining computers seized in a series of raids, local media reported Friday.

A $4 posted by the Borneo news outlet Dayak Daily shows the steamroller smashing the rigs to pieces in a parking lot at the police headquarters in the city of Miri.

Police seized the rigs from miners in six separate raids between February and April, Malaysian authorities told $4 on Monday.

The miners allegedly stole $2 million worth of electricity from Sarawak Energy, a local utility company, to power the rigs, assistant commissioner of Police Hakemal Hawari told CNBC.

The crushed equipment was worth around $1.26 million, police said.

Six people were arrested on suspicion of stealing electricity from Sarawak Energy, police chief ACP Hakemal Hawari told Malaysian news outlet $4, adding that they'd been fined nearly $2,000 and jailed for up to eight months.

Electricity thefts by illegal bitcoin mining operators are commonplace across the world. Ukraine police $4 that police said was stealing as much as $259,300 in electricity each month.

Police said that three houses had burned down recently because of illegal electric connections linked to mining operations. They said that miners had stolen $21.3 million worth of electricity in the country in the past year.