Third Bitcoin mining farm raided in Venezuela in less than a week

The Venezuelan State continues with raids on Bitcoin mining farms, a crusade aimed at disconnecting ASIC equipment throughout the national territory. In Carabobo, the authorities dismantled another data center, which is the third intervened in less than a week.

The governor of the entity, Rafael Lacava, reported the new raid on a farm. He did not identify exactly where it was located and He only limited himself to expressing that they continue to disconnect machines “that consume many megawatts at the price of a skinny chicken.”

As can be seen in the videos that accompany the publication, it is a large Bitcoin mining farm, with two floors of rigs with hundreds of ASIC miners installed.

The raid on the warehouse where the Bitcoin mining farm was located responds to the actions of the Venezuelan government to disconnect all activity. This is because the Ministry of Electric Energy notified last week that they will uninstall all data centers that are operating in the country.

According to the government, cryptocurrency miners are responsible for the constant electrical failures in Venezuela. For his part, the governor of Carabobo, Rafael Lacava, has stated that “citizens are forced to face the negative consequences generated by these farms.”

For this reason, he noted, “we are no longer going to tolerate this type of reality, which only harms people’s peace of mind.” Although he did not mention that In the Caribbean country there is a deficit 3,000 megawattsaccording to calculations by the Venezuelan Observatory of Public Services.

The new raid is the second in less than a week carried out by the Carabobo authorities. On May 17, Lacava announced a first intervention to a data center to mine Bitcoin in your jurisdiction.

At that time, he revealed the seizure of 11,000 mining equipment and assured that many more confiscations would be carried out. However, Lacava It did not determine the number of miners seized in this new raid.

In addition to the raids in Carabobo, the Venezuelan government took action against a Bitcoin mining farm that operated in the state of Aragua. On May 16, the authorities of the Caribbean country raided the data center and 2,304 ASIC miners were seized.

Until now, the Venezuelan government has raided three Bitcoin mining farms. Two in Carabobo and one in Aragua. This, despite the fact that it is a national measure.

The official count of confiscated Bitcoin mining equipment, so far, in Venezuela, It amounts to 12,304 ASICs. That is much more than what Paraguay has seized, another nation that acts against the mining industry (in this case, the illegal one). In that country, just over 6,000 ASICs have been confiscated so far this year.

PDVSA-Crypto in the middle of everything

The disconnection of miners in Venezuela, although it is due to electrical failures in the country (according to the government), occurs in the midst of a context in which the government continues to investigate the largest case of government corruption ever recorded with cryptocurrencies, the so-called PDVSA-Crypto scheme.

This corruption plot, which caused the loss of some USD 20,000 million, would have promoted the installation of Bitcoin mining farmsaccording to the accusations of the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab.

Several dozen politicians and businessmen have been arrested due to the PDVSA-Cripto scheme. Among them, important leaders of the ruling Chavismo, such as the former Minister of Petroleum and former president of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), Tareck El Aissami.

The corruption scandal, which broke out in March of last year, also led to the arrest of Joselit Ramírez, former president of the National Superintendence of Crypto Assets (Sunacrip). He is accused of using that government office to convert the dollars obtained into cryptocurrencies. for the alleged illicit sale of Venezuelan oilsupposedly sponsored by El Aissami.

The case led to the intervention of Sunacrip, the regulatory body of the Bitcoin mining industry and all cryptocurrency activity in Venezuela. The restructuring, as the government called it, has been going on for more than a year. And in the meantime, the cryptoasset sector has remained in regulatory uncertainty.

Even more so with the raids on Bitcoin mining farms, since their disconnection occurs despite the fact that mining activity is duly legalized in Venezuela. This, through a decree issued by the (now defunct) National Constituent Assembly in 2020, as reported by CriptoNoticias.

“They are killing the sector”

Confiscations and raids of Bitcoin mining farms in Venezuela have caused reactions among operators in the sector. Alexis Lugo, executive director of Criptoneros and Bitcoin mining operator in that country, believes that with its actions, the government “is killing the sector” of cryptocurrencies.

In contact with CriptoNoticias, Lugo asserted that “all the excessive control and lack of transparency” of the authorities have “greatly delayed the cryptocurrency ecosystem in Venezuela,” which once became one of the countries more advanced in that matter.

Lugo maintains that Bitcoin mining “is a sector that offers business, dynamism to the economy and direct and indirect jobs.” “So, we are totally affected. Instead of coming out with something positive, what they do is slow down the sector further,” he criticized.

“The truth is that they are totally killing the sector. I hope that in the coming days Corpoelec will shed a positive light regarding this issue of the mining industry that should not stop,” he commented.

Lugo specified that, from now on, Venezuelan miners “can expect more uncertainty.” This, remembering that there has not been any official report or government directive in more than a year.

He alleges that, due to the slowdown of the mining sector in Venezuela, “a lot of money is lost.” “And not only in the money that is not received, but also in the money that is retained.”

“And that makes the sector seek to migrate, geographically speaking,” he warned.