I read an interesting paper not long ago that discussed exactly such a scenario (stealing electricity to mine Bitcoin). The paper is titled, "Bitcoin & Gresham's Law -- The Economic Inevitability of Collapse":
http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/Bitcoin%20and%20Gres...
Actually the original title of the article (I speak Dutch) was: Illegal bitcoin producer gets caught (literal translation), then in the first paragraph the article goes on how the guy was 'making' fake bitcoins.
It's also good to know that the newspaper in question is the 'Fox news' of the Netherlands. It's known for sensational, on the edge of fictional journalism. On top of everything they're obviously uneducated on many of the stories they publish.
Can we lay it off with the aprils fools already?
By definition if you obtain any monetary benefit from a criminal act then it is Money Laundering. It encompasses a lot of different possible activities. Tax evasion is a crime but if you take that money and transfer it to an overseas account then that is money laundering.
(posted this same comment in the other HN comment thread about this story)