Two people are facing a lawsuit after they allegedly stole from a northern Minnesota electric company to power cryptocurrency farms.
North Star Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit power distributor, recently filed a civil lawsuit against Ryan Jaenicke of Roseau and Tina Fehlhaber of Badger.
According to the lawsuit, North Star officials noticed “significant losses” of power in June of 2022 and began an investigation.
On May 9, North Star employees performed an equipment inspection on a high-voltage distribution line near a Roosevelt property owned by TiMar LLC, a company controlled by Fehlhaber.
The employees determined that equipment not owned by North Star had been connected to the line without authorization. They then contacted the Roseau County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies and employees then followed an unauthorized cable to a makeshift shed near the property, where they found two unauthorized transformers not belonging to North Star.
Looking inside the home, deputies and employees also saw at least 26 cryptocurrency mining units connected to the conductor, according to the lawsuit.
When deputies executed a search warrant of the home on May 25, Fehlhaber was in the home and all of the mining units had been removed.
The lawsuit points to Jaenicke’s YouTube channel "Degenerate Passive Income.” There, he has posted videos about using electricity from the property to power his two nearby cryptocurrency mining operations.
