A crypto miner found his house in shambles after a South Australian police raid- raised on the false suspicion of a cannabis growing room- led to an unwarranted search of his living quarters, reported a local news publication on Feb.12.

The police, reportedly acting on a tip-off, barged into the miner’s Smithfield Plains residence on Feb.11 in search of the alleged marijuana grow room.

The raid, however, brought the Adelaide police face-to-face with what was a cryptocurrency mining setup, with an extensive ventilation system.

Cryptocurrencies require elaborate setups that boast of exceptionally high computing powers and naturally have a large power consumption requirement.

The crypto miner and house owner, Rob Butvila, came home to find the “property unlocked” with “gates, doors and fence panels removed and broken”.

Butvila shared his shock and reaction with users of Twitter and Facebook in a video that has since been retweeted and shared thousands of times. He even stated his evident displeasure by saying that the police refused to discuss the damages:

“SAPOL used brutal and destructive force, kicking in doors … to find cryptocurrency mining computers where they expected to find a marijuana grow room.[…] They hung up when questioned about who pays the damages.[…] No apology, not even so much as a phone call.”

Butvila further said that the police suspicions were first aroused when they saw solar panels, security cameras and a ventilation fan in a window of his house, explaining that the fan was being used to cool the crypto mining computer.

The devastated miner said:

“To make things worse they left the place wide open and a hard drive is now missing and the security camera cable has been cut. It would be at least $1000 damage.”

An SA police spokeswoman has said that police contact information had been left behind at the owner’s house.

The spokeswoman was further quoted as saying:

“For operational reasons, police do not give prior notice of the intention to execute search warrants. Police always try to minimise any damage caused during operations.”

Rob Butvila said that he would submitting an estimated damage list to the police and was considering to undertake legal action on his end.