By donating a couple of air conditioners and delivering some boxes of milk to hospitals, illegal Bitcoin miners in Paraguay manage to evade jail or fines for their activity, which demonstrates shortcomings in that country's criminal and judicial system. This is what Nelson Medina, lawyer and legal advisor to the National Electricity Administration (ANDE), denounces, who participated this week in a meeting with three committees of the Senate of Paraguay. According to Medina, there are currently 4 legal cases for theft of electricity in Paraguayan courts. That is just 5% of the 73 complaints that, since 2019, have been submitted by ANDE to the Public Ministry, all within the framework of the crusade against illegal connections to mine Bitcoin. The low rate of prosecuted miners is due to the fact that ANDE “has not been successful” in prosecuting clandestine operators. And, as the lawyer sees it, “practically all of the accused people (illegal miners) obtain an alternative solution to the criminal process.” What ANDE has seen in these cases is that the Prosecutor's Office and the Judiciary of Paraguay rule, against miners who operate with illegal connections, only the reparation of the social damage caused by their activity. “And we see as a common denominator that this repair is donating two air conditioners and the provision of boxes of milk to health centers,” he criticized. And not complying, the victim is obliged to repair the damage, which is ANDE itself, an organization that obtains property damages of up to 20,000 million guaraníes, about USD 2.6 milliondepending on the case and the amount of energy stolen by clandestine operators, Medina explained.
Only 5% of ANDE complaints have been processed. Source: SenateTV. The assertion of the ANDE legal advisor coincides with the comments of the electrical energy engineer and defender of Bitcoin mining in Paraguay, Nelson Cristaldo. He said at the beginning of June that ANDE had made more than 60 complaints against illegal miners, but that they remained without a solution. He thus recalled that “no one was arrested for stealing millions of guaraníes per hour.” For him, There is an existence of “complicity” between ANDE and the judicial authorities from Paraguay. Illegal Bitcoin mining in Paraguay has increased significantly since last year. According to data provided by engineer Félix Sosa, president of ANDE, since January and until now, 71 MW consumed by clandestine Bitcoin mining farms have been disconnected. That is 28% more compared to everything that was disconnected in 2023, when the ANDE recovered 60 MW consumed by clandestine miners. This was done in 33 interventions carried out last year on mining farms, said Sosa, who also participated in the parliamentary meeting.
A project with “dissuasive” intent
What was explained by Nelson Medina, from ANDE, occurred one day before the Senate of Paraguay approved in half a sanction the bill that modifies article 173 of the Penal Code.
The reform is to punish illegal Bitcoin mining with up to 10 years in prison, as well as authorizing the seizure of mining equipment and any other device used to consume electricity without permission. As BitcoinDynamic reported, this project was presented by Senator Ever Villalba and had the support of the national Executive, controlled by Santiago Peña. Now it will be debated in the Lower House, where its approval is plausible. As lawyer Nelson Medina sees it, the law has the “dissuasive” intention of avoiding the commission of the crime of theft of electrical energy, that causes problems for the population and monetary losses for the State, he remembered. “Article 173 of the Code currently establishes penalties of up to 3 years or fines. Taking a chronology, the results are disastrous and scarce. “We are facing representatives of organized crime who challenge the State,” he recalled.
ANDE's legal advisor questions Paraguay's judicial system. Source: SenateTV. So far, the Paraguayan State has managed to seize more than 9,000 Bitcoin ASIC miners. High-tech devices whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
Although there have been inspections where the equipment remains disconnected within the warehouses in which they operated, There have been cases of disappearance of hundreds of miners. Added to this is that there are devices that They are taken to the headquarters of the prosecutor's office in the departments where the raids are carried out, their current status being unknown. BitcoinDynamic tried to find out the whereabouts of the miners directly with the organizations executing the interventions, that is, the ANDE, the MP and the Supreme Court of Justice. However, None of the entities clarified, until now, where the ASICs are.
Where there were responses, it was from the National Secretariat for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets (Senabico). This entity told this medium in recent days that They have not received seized Bitcoin miners by the government in its audits, despite the fact that it is one of its main functions.