Officials in Puebla, Mexico, say they’ve dismantled a covert cryptocurrency mining operation suspected of being tied to money laundering. According to the state’s public security secretary, investigators found at least 300 computer units set up specifically for mining digital currencies at the hidden site.
The equipment, authorities say, was illegally hooked up to the local power grid, allowing operators to run the energy-hungry machines without paying for electricity. Crypto mining requires enormous amounts of computing power and electricity to solve complex calculations that validate transactions and generate new coins, which is why illegal grid connections have become a recurring problem at unauthorized mining sites around the world.
Because of the suspected power theft, officials are pursuing charges related to electricity fraud in addition to the money laundering investigation. Authorities have not yet released details on who ran the operation or how long it had been active before being discovered.
The case adds to a growing list of illegal mining operations uncovered across Latin America in recent years, as cheap or stolen electricity makes clandestine crypto farms an attractive, if risky, criminal enterprise.
For more details and video coverage of the raid, check out the original report from Telemundo.
Source: Investigan presunto lavado de dinero en granja clandestina de criptomonedas hallada en México (telemundo.com).
Image: EthereumClassic, CC0 1.0 (via Openverse).