Paraguayan Authorities Shut Down 2,700 Miners in Largest Anti-Illegal Bitcoin Mining Intervention to Date
Paraguay continues to crack down on illegal mining activities that siphon power from the country’s electric grid. In an operation executed in Saltos de Guaira on May 28, the Paraguayan National Power Administration (ANDE) and local prosecutors detected and pulled the plug on a giant bitcoin mining farm hosting 2,738 bitcoin miners.
While many of these machines were disconnected, the farm had bypassed the connection to the electric meter, obtaining the energy for the operation without being accounted by ANDE. In addition to the bitcoin miners, authorities confiscated five electric transformers with a total installed capacity of 7,150 kilo-volt-amperes.
The detection of this farm was possible due to the implementation of several techniques, including supervisory and control systems (SCADA) and artificial intelligence (AI) software to monitor the load current peaks.