Author: Heart of Computing Power

In early September 2026, a search team led by federal law enforcement appeared in the Sierra Mountains of Puebla, Mexico.

At the forefront were personnel from the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office (FGR), followed by police from the navy and state public safety department.

They pushed through dense jungles and eventually surrounded an inconspicuous old house deep in the woods.

When the front door was forced open, the activity inside left those present momentarily stunned.

There were no signs of life inside; only about 300 specialized devices densely packed inside were continuously running at high frequency, emitting a tremendous buzzing sound; local reports often referred to them as GPUs, likely indicating cryptocurrency that can be mined rather than Bitcoin.

Next to them were neatly arranged transformers and 80 medium-voltage connection terminals, and on the roof were 8 satellite dishes.

Due to the extreme remoteness of the location, they could only connect to the external network via satellite signals.

Local police later confirmed that this mountain property was suspected of being an illegal cryptocurrency mine, but "mining" itself is not a separately defined crime in Mexico.

1. How This Group Got Exposed

Concealing a mine in the deep mountains is based on a simple logic.

Mining machines generate significant heat and noise, and if placed in cities, they would be reported by neighbors in no time, so the more remote the location, the safer it is.

Puebla state safety officials also stated that such activities consume large amounts of electricity and produce high noise, thus choosing places that are remote and far from communities.

However, the reason this group specifically chose the Sierra Mountains was due to a more core reason:

This area is adjacent to the New Necaxa hydropower facilities, with abundant hydroelectric resources, and being close to the power station makes it easy to manipulate.

The investigators claim this network would utilize the proximity to the hydropower facilities to steal vast amounts of energy.

The key clue that led to their exposure was the discovery of a large-scale abnormal power access, with one unauthorized installed transformer becoming one of the breakthroughs.

The police traced this abnormal power access and eventually discovered the mine.

Currently, the prosecution has filed a case based on the theft of national energy.

However, forensic accounting is still following this lead for further investigation.

The source of the funds behind these valuable high-end devices and where the purchase money flowed from is still under investigation for related money laundering suspicions.

2. Why Some Dare to Steal Electricity

Daring to mine in the mountains with the risk of being raided is actually driven by two words: huge profits.

A related report by Reuters quotes an estimate from the Cambridge University Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, stating that the cost to mine a Bitcoin is nearly $45,000.

As for the current market price of Bitcoin, it was around $77,000 to $78,000 in early September.

This appears profitable, but for miners who conduct business according to regulations, life isn't easy.

In the entire mining industry, electricity costs usually account for the largest expense, about 60% to 80%.

If electricity prices rise even by a few cents, the profit margin will be compressed significantly.

But what if there’s no cost for electricity?

As Samuel León, a researcher of electricity theft at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, pointed out, if electricity is stolen, the main cost of this business “is almost zero.”

A miner who doesn't have to pay for electricity will have significantly reduced operating risks, making their apparent profits look extremely high.

Because the profit margins are so thick, stealing electricity to mine has been suspected by law enforcement to have evolved into a network rather than being just individual small operations.

As early as the beginning of 2025, law enforcement had dismantled a hidden site in the vicinity of New Necaxa.

Investigations pointed towards properties related to the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME) being accused of illegally connecting power for mining.

By 2025, two more concealed mining points were discovered at the border between Puebla and the neighboring state of Tlaxcala.

Officials afterward stated that this was no longer a single site, but a network targeting places near hydropower plants, engaging in large-scale electricity theft.

3. Who Pays for the Zero Cost

Opportunities don't just fall from the sky; the enormous costs saved by the mine actually translate into losses for the public system.

Relevant public statements from the Mexican National Electricity Company indicate that from January to July 2024, due to electricity theft, unauthorized connections, and tampering with meters among other “non-technical losses,” the scale was approximately 6346 GWh, valued at around 13.8 billion pesos, equivalent to about 817 million dollars.

This is merely a half-year's worth of losses for a single electricity company.

The more complex aspect lies in the regulatory environment.

In Mexico, individual mining itself does not have a specific legal definition nor is it prohibited.

While cryptocurrencies are not recognized as legal tender, holding, trading, and mining them are not prohibited in principle.

The industry is in a state of “permissible but conservative, fragmented regulation," which naturally makes it easy to be targeted by gray and black markets.

According to Chainalysis's 2026 report, in 2025 globally, illicit addresses involving cryptocurrencies received at least $154 billion, an increase of 162% year over year, meaning more than double.

Of this, about $104 billion flowed to sanctioned entities, with stablecoins accounting for about 84% of illicit transaction volume.

This surge was mainly driven by sanction evasion, state/quasi-state funding flows, and money laundering networks.

This is exactly why when police investigate conditions of unauthorized electricity connections, they immediately look into the true source of the equipment purchase funds.

Ultimately, the original intention behind Bitcoin was to make the ledger transparent, with each coin's movement trajectory on the blockchain being publicly traceable.

However, in reality, the physical energy used to produce these digital assets can easily turn into an unclaimable bad debt.

Machines can hide in remote mountains running day and night, computing power can be transferred freely in the virtual world, but the consumed electricity never just vanishes into thin air.

The expenses saved at one end will ultimately be transferred in the form of public losses to ordinary people who pay their electricity bills according to regulations and the entire power grid system.

The 300 machines in the jungle have been shut down, but as long as the profit margins from stealing electricity still exist, similar stories will likely continue to unfold elsewhere.