Federal prosecutors in Mexico, the Navy, and Puebla state police seized 300 crypto mining machines from a remote property in Tlaola that had been intercepting electricity directly from a federal hydroelectric complex, the state security ministry said.
Noise and isolation gave the mining operation away
The site is situated in the Sierra Norte, the rugged northern highlands of Puebla, in a municipality of about 20,000. Officers left with transformers, medium-voltage terminals, and working satellite internet antennas were also taken away.
The units seized were GPUs, which would rule out Bitcoin and point to coins that are still mined on graphics cards. The operation’s cryptocurrency target has not yet been confirmed by authorities.
In a September 6 post on X, the Secretaría de Seguridad Pública said the property was jointly secured by the federal Attorney General’s office, the Navy, and Puebla state forces.
“Electrical infrastructure, satellite internet, and specialized equipment” for generating digital assets had been located on the premises.
Mining “consumes a great deal of energy and generates a lot of noise, which is why operators seek out isolated and very remote locations. That is what alerted us,” said State security minister Francisco Sánchez to reporters.
Sánchez added that the tip-off came from the site’s proximity to the Nuevo Necaxa dam, where investigators had been investigating reports of illegal mining, and that “there was a very large power connection.”
Forensic teams investigate illicit crypto laundering networks
Sánchez described the Tlaola property as one node in a broader network that preys on the Sierra Norte’s hydroelectric infrastructure. He said the same activity is cropping up in neighboring states, with searches already stretching to nearby municipalities.
Forensic accountants are trying to ascertain who paid for the hardware, and the state government is investigating whether coins mined at the site were used to launder criminal proceeds.
Mexican authorities busted three other mining operations in Puebla and neighboring Tlaxcala in 2025.
In Malaysia, the country’s national utility Tenaga Nasional reportedly lost over $1.1 billion from 2020 to August 2025 due to electricity theft linked to mining, Cryptopolitan said.
In June, Thailand authorities seized 315 Bitcoin rigs in five northeastern provinces, reckoning the damage from tampered meters and unpaid bills at about $1.2 million.
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