The Payment Expert Podcast examined how organised crime uses cryptocurrency mining and stablecoins to launder money, after Mexican authorities raided a hidden mining farm wired to a hydroelectric dam.
Mexican prosecutors, the navy and Puebla state police seized about 300 graphics processing units at a site in Tlaola, in the Sierra Norte region of Puebla state, between 6 and 8 September 2026, according to the Puebla state government.
Reuters reported it was the fourth crypto mining site found in the area since early 2025, each near the same hydroelectric dam. Investigators suspect the operators stole power from the Nuevo Necaxa complex and used the mined coins to launder illicit funds. No arrests have been made and no criminal organisation has been named.
Stolen electricity removes the largest cost of mining, the podcast said, and freshly mined coins carry no transaction history linking them to drug sales or ransomware, making them easier to move than cash. Cartels are shifting from cash businesses and shell companies toward crypto, the podcast said.
Crypto scams: Pig butchering and stablecoin rails
The podcast set out how “pig butchering” investment scams work. Scammers build a fake romance or friendship over months before steering the target to a fraudulent platform, sometimes telling victims to buy stablecoins on a real exchange such as Kraken and then move the funds to a wallet controlled by a fake trading app.
Early trades show fake profits and small withdrawals are allowed before the target sends a final, larger sum, after which operators demand a tax or release fee to withdraw money that does not exist.
Shan Hanes, former chief executive of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas, wired $47.1m of the bank’s funds to such scammers in 2023, according to the US Department of Justice; the bank collapsed and Hanes was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
Stablecoins carry most of the illicit volume, the podcast said. Tether‘s USDT runs largely on the Tron blockchain, carries low fees and is widely accepted on offshore exchanges.
Chainalysis reported that stablecoins accounted for 84% of all illicit crypto transaction volume in 2025. Tether can freeze addresses when ordered by certain jurisdictions, which has aided investigators, and fraudsters would move to other offshore stablecoins if USDT were removed.
Russia’s ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5 processed $93.3bn in under a year as a settlement system for sanctioned businesses, per Chainalysis, a driver of a 694% rise in value received by sanctioned entities in 2025.
Prevention, forced labour and traceability
Prevention works best before or at the moment a victim first buys crypto, the podcast said, because funds are split across many wallets and exchanges within minutes and recovery is rare.
Many scam operators are trafficked or coerced; a 2025 UN report estimated 300,000 people work in forced scam operations, about 75% in the Mekong region, and Interpol has documented beatings and torture at compounds. When one country cracks down, operators relocate.
The public ledger still makes crypto traceable in ways cash is not, the podcast said, with illicit activity below 1% of all crypto volume, per Chainalysis.
Stablecoins remain attractive to criminals partly because of weak anti-money-laundering controls, yet the Metropolitan Police seized about 61,000 bitcoin, worth more than £5.5bn, from Zhimin Qian, who defrauded roughly 128,000 victims in China, in what the Met calls the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world.
