Libyan police detain 50 Chinese nationals in crypto farm bust

June 23, 2023 Libyan authorities have detained 50 Chinese nationals in a raid of a crypto-mining operation in the west of the country, the prosecution in Tripoli said Thursday. Mining is the process of verifying transactions on a crypto blockchain by solving mathematical puzzles, for which miners are rewarded with more of the cryptocurrency. It is an energy-intensive process and requires a lot of hardware and electricity. Prosecutors said in a statement that Interior Ministry agents were searching a farm in Zliten, 160 kilometers (99 miles) east of the capital and found "minors exploiting significant material capacity to generate virtual…