This has happened. I wrote about incidents of supercomputers being used to mine cryptocurrency a few years ago: Subverting computing research for fool's gold.
Bitcoin
NSF sponsored-researcher misused supercomputers to mine bitcoin via BBC June 2014:
A researcher has been suspended from a US national agency for misusing supercomputers to mine bitcoins at two universities. In a report, the National Science Foundation (NSF) revealed that more than $8,000 worth of bitcoins had been generated from NSF-funded computers... It is claimed that the unnamed researcher used remote access software and may have been attempting to cover his tracks.
So, he knew it wrong, tried to hide what he did including remotely accessing the supercomputer from Europe, and got caught.
@EllieAsksWhy @psnively $150,000 spent to make $8,000 of personal profit. What a waste.
— Emin Gün Sirer🔺⚔️ (@el33th4xor) June 14, 2014
The researcher’s access to all NSF-funded supercomputer resources was terminated, and after the NSF Office of Inspector General investigated (pp. 30-31), he was suspended from any further activities government-wide.
