Teams of ERP North revealed high-tech theft of electricity from Varna hotel

The theft of electricity by high-tech means was revealed by the specialized teams of Elektrodistribuenie North, part of the ENERGO-PRO Varna group. The violation was committed by a hotel in Varna's Vinitsa district. For this purpose, an illegally constructed scheme was used, in which the amounts of electricity consumed by the hotel are not measured by the electricity meter and are not paid accordingly.

After analyzing the electricity consumption in the area, the specialists of the network company found that part of the distributed energy is lost — it is delivered, but not accounted for, invoiced and paid for. After several checks, they found the place of “leakage” of energy and informed the law enforcement agencies.

In recent years, cases of illegal consumption of electricity throughout the country have increased significantly. Statistics point to a significant growth in software manipulations on the means of commercial measurement.

In the period 2016-2018, the employees of ERP North carried out more than 525,000 inspections for unregulated electricity consumption. More than 9,500 cases of manipulations with an inaccurate, incomplete or unmeasured amount of electricity consumed were detected. Since the beginning of the year, nearly 90,000 inspections have been carried out, in which more than 1,200 violations have been identified.

According to ENERGO-PRO, in the period 2015-2018 in North-East Bulgaria 646 people were convicted of stealing electricity. 13 of them have effective sentences, 182 have been suspended, and the rest have been punished with probation.