Mexican state and federal authorities have dismantled a clandestine cryptocurrency mining operation in Tlaola, northern Puebla, with the raid centered on suspected electricity theft and a wider inquiry into possible money laundering. According to local reports, the facility contained roughly 300 computers or GPUs, 80 medium-voltage terminals and eight satellite antennas, and was allegedly connected illegally to the Nuevo Necaxa hydroelectric complex.
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the Mexican Navy are participating in the investigation. Puebla public security chief Francisco Sánchez said the site was detected because of its substantial energy use, noise and large power connection. Officials have presented the alleged unauthorized power connection—not cryptocurrency mining itself—as the suspected offense, since mining is not prohibited in Mexico.
Authorities have not publicly identified which cryptocurrency was mined, and no arrests, charges, court findings or exact raid date have been confirmed. Reports also note that investigators have floated possible money laundering as a hypothesis, but no established link to a specific criminal group has been made. Security analyst David Saucedo said the infrastructure and financing would likely exceed the capabilities of a small criminal group, calling it a possible sign of cartel sophistication.
The Puebla facility is the fourth suspected mining farm discovered in the Sierra Norte region since early 2025. Energy theft specialist Samuel Leon noted that eliminating electricity costs would radically change the economics of such operations. Chainalysis data cited in reporting estimated that crypto addresses linked to criminal activity received about $154 billion in 2025, with Latin American organized crime increasingly using remote infrastructure and stolen power for mining. For Bitcoin specifically, no mined coin, wallet, mining pool or measurable hashrate change has been tied to the site, meaning there is no evidence of a network-level effect on Bitcoin’s difficulty or global hashrate.
