Hidden in the Sierra Norte mountains of Puebla, Mexico, a crypto mining farm was quietly doing two things at once: minting digital assets and stealing the electricity needed to power the whole operation. Mexican authorities raided the site between September 6 and 8, seizing approximately 300 GPUs along with electrical transformers and satellite antennas.
The facility was tucked near the Nuevo Necaxa hydroelectric dam, and the primary charge isn’t crypto mining itself, which remains legal in Mexico. It’s the unauthorized siphoning of power from federal infrastructure, a practice locally known as “huachicoleo,” a term originally coined for fuel theft that has now expanded to cover energy piracy more broadly.
A pattern emerges in Puebla
This wasn’t a one-off discovery. The raid marks Puebla’s fourth bust of an illegal crypto mining operation since early 2025, pointing to something more systemic than a few rogue miners with extension cords.
Puebla’s security minister, Francisco Sánchez, noted that the facility’s remote location and the noise it generated were key factors in tipping off investigators.
Authorities suspect organized crime involvement, with investigators looking into potential connections to major cartels including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). No direct links to any specific cartel have been validated so far, and investigators haven’t disclosed which tokens the facility was mining.
The economics of stolen power
Mexico’s state utility, CFE, reported electricity theft losses exceeding 6,346 GWh valued at around 13.8 billion pesos, approximately $817 million, from January through July 2024 alone. That figure covers all forms of electricity theft across the country, not just crypto mining.
Laundering goes digital
The mining operation sits within a broader pattern of cartels embracing digital assets. Crypto-related money laundering by Mexican criminal organizations reportedly increased by 55.8% in 2025, a figure that underscores how quickly traditional organized crime is adapting to blockchain technology.
Mining crypto with stolen electricity produces coins with no obvious paper trail back to illicit activity. Unlike drug proceeds that need to be laundered through shell companies or cash-intensive businesses, freshly mined tokens arrive looking relatively clean. They’re new coins, not coins with a transaction history tied to darknet markets or ransomware payments.